Letters to the Editor

No Fundamentals

TO THE EDITOR

Thank you for Keats' quotation describing himself as a lonely thinker after (or before) Rodin. Are we at that position of Cleopatra who, after the battle of Actium, turned in distress to the wise old counselor and asked "What shall we do now?" He replied, "Think and die."

College graduates don't know who Ananias was, or was supposed to be, and I doubt if on poll they could identify Goethe.

I know of no institution farther behind in its Las Vegas, Nev

A Reply to Mr. Holmes

TO THE EDITOR

I would stand as staunchly as anyone in defense of a man's right to voice any belief even his right to be just as selfrighteous as his own fanaticism dictates. Correlatively, a man does not have to remain silent when the Governmental policy on Vietnam which he supports is condemned off-handedly as "immoral and short-sighted," "overt aggression," "evil folly," and "morally indefensible." I refer to the letter of Edward M. Holmes '33 published in the January issue, and the letter of "Bain'' Davis, published in the 1932 Class Column in November. The adjectives I have quoted from these two gentlemen surely do not rise to the level of rational argument.

As to Mr. Holmes' assertion that American-Vietnam policy is "the product of innocence and a conniving self-interest," the English language supplies no clue to the meaning of that combination of opposites.

Mr. Holmes' condemnation of U.S. Vietnam policy as "morally indefensible" requires no more than his God-like judgment of evil in any view contrary to his; but is he really qualified to have even a suspicion as to whether that policy is, as he says, "strategically mistaken."

I fail to follow Mr. Holmes' transition from criticism of U.S. Vietnam policy to defense of the beatniks. If it were true as he states that the "elder statesmen" of the beatniks were responsible for Dachau and Auschwitz, it would provide no excuse for whatever is wrong with the beatniks.

Finally, since Mr. Holmes dismisses all unwelcome views on Vietnam as coming from the "WASP establishment," I should note that I am a non-WASP, non-member of the Establishment (whatever that is).

Washington, D. C.

No Easy Answer

TO THE EDITOR

In January's letters, E. M. Holmes '33 joins with two others and, from his experience, "most Dartmouth men" (a sickening way of putting himself in the right) in agreeing about "our government's tragic fall from grace." The "evil folly of U.S. intervention in an Asiatic civil war" is what he's talking about.

It's understandable that people react with great emotion while discussing our involvement in Vietnam. But who wants to hear sarcasm or making the situation all black and white, as I believe Mr. Holmes has done? Recently I received a letter from a new Dartmouth alumnus in the Peace Corps asking if there was anyone at all in this country not completely against our being in Vietnam. He's a decent young man who thinks deeply and is not clearly certain about right and wrong in Vietnam. It's always hard to announce a "yes" when many lives, some innocent, are being taken. In my answer I didn't and can't speak for most Dartmouth men, and don't believe that Mr. Holmes can in this instance or in many others, despite his "experience." As a Dartmouth graduate I wanted to be counted as standing for the U.S. government's position in Vietnam. Although the answer was given with great difficulty.

Since Mr. Holmes groups Hiroshima and Nagasaki and Watts with Dachau and Auschwitz, it's surprising that he thinks the U.S. has "fallen from grace." What height was there to fall from? Strangely, my life has led me to modern-day Hiroshima and Nagasaki, to a few victims, a German extermination center, and Watts. I've also mixed tubs of the feared napalm and later learned to drop it from a plane. These scenes of deep life and death forces strangely mix and entwine in my mind, but do not help to give me answers.

I'm afraid to mention right and wrong, but at least Hiroshima and Nagasaki came after Auschwitz and Pearl Harbor and numberless other "morally indefensible" mistakes by Japanese and Germans.

Ungracious we were before Ho Chi Min and ungracious, dirty, sorrowful and tragic deeply tragic we are now with him. But I can't bring myself to say "morally indefensible." I would go again to Vietnam and fight if asked, although I am confused enough and coward enough, too, not to volunteer.

I am glad Mr. Holmes and a "host of others" (he is lucky to have so many with him all the time) are having their "Victorian precepts (optimistic progress, righting wrongs, naive Christian endeavor, etc.) snapping on the East coast of Asia." It's about time. To get his rebirth a lot of naivete will have to be destroyed and much dirt swallowed.

The Silent Generation

Philadelphia, Pa.

George Kalbfleiscb

TO THE EDITOR

The ALUMNI MAGAZINE'S failure to produce a major article on George Kalbfleisch in response to his death is most distressing. For those who had direct contact with him he truly liberated us from our past and challenged us to live responsibly with ourselves and our neighbors. To speak of these students as George's "extended family" is to distort the freedom in his relationships and his impact on the larger community.

For many townspeople, teenagers, and "dates" George directly or indirectly pointed the way towards the realization of a deeper humanity in themselves and society. A major function of the ALUMNI MAGAZINE is to celebrate the College's teachers. Rarely has Dartmouth had a man who taught as deeply and as fully as George.

Philadelphia, Pa.

The editors are glad to have this richly deserved tribute to George Kalbfleisch, but as they have explained to Mr. Pierce, the long, front-section memorial articles that were standard practice in the ALUMNI MAGAZINE in the more somnolent days of the College are no longer possible, for faculty or alumni. Communications of tribute from former students or colleagues are more than welcome, and can be one way of supplementing the obituaries now printed in the regular In Memoriam section. We recognize the function of "celebrating" the College's teachers and can best carry it out, we believe, by reporting their work and accomplishments while they are alive and actively teaching.

Pung Picture Wanted

TO THE EDITOR

Back in 1912 I took a picture of a pung drawn by six yoke of oxen and loaded with one box car of groceries being hauled from the railroad station to the Etna general store. I prized this very highly but it burned when my house burned. I have a feeling that others photographed the same assembly. I should be most happy to pay for a copy if one can be obtained. Would you have space in the MAGAZINE for a short request of a copy? Mine was taken in front of Bissell.

East Wakefield, N. H.