1951
No newshawk likes to be scooped. But it really hurts when the scoop is not the dastardly act of a competing medium (the Class Newsletter) but a Class nominating committee letter. It becomes genuinely agonizing when the news is about yourself. Perhaps some of you didn’t read the offending letter.
The story is that I have left the world of “outhouse counsel” as a lawyer in private practice in Philadelphia to become an “inhouse counsel” by joining the legal staff of Western Electric, the manufacturing and supply unit of the Bell System, in New York. Whether the privy is warmer, or I succumbed to seduction by Baghdad-on-the- Hudson, remains to be seen.
In any event, I’ve rented a too expensive highrise apartment on Manhattan’s Upper East Side just around the corner from new Class President Howie Phillips. I did not realize the proximity at the time, but Howie is still suspicious that your bachelor Class Secretary was plotting free home dinners from a domesticated Class President.
At the time of writing (in New York), I have two apartments. My files are still basically in suburban Philadelphia, so that if I miss some pending news item this month, I hope that you will appreciate that it is probably buried in a disarray of papers about to be moved.
Among other “inhouse” lawyers, Bob Bugen, director of employee relations, has been elected a vice president of Dictaphone Corp. Bob joined Dictaphone last year after having been general manager of operations in Japan and then assistant to the vice president for employee relations of Singer Cos. His law degree is from Yale.
Kit Fuller has been elected president and chief operating officer of Acme Visible Records, Inc., Crozet, Va. Acme is a manufacturer-marketer of custom-designed business systems and information retrieval devices with 115 branch offices in the United States and Canada. American Brands, Inc., recently bought a controlling interest in Acme.
Rod Vetter is the new treasurer of L. B. Foster Cos., Pittsburgh, Pa. Foster is a continent-wide distributor for rail/track products and accessories, pipe, steel piling, construction products and equipment, and highway products for the construction, industrial and utility markets. Rod was corporate credit manager for Standard Packaging Corp. before joining Foster in 1965 as assistant treasurer. In addition to his Dartmouth A.8., he holds an M.B.A. from Columbia. He and wife lane have two children.
I am not at all certain that then was, or now is, the time for a mutual fund manager to keep other than a low profile. “Suds”Bissell did just that in an April interview with the “Boston Herald Traveler.” As a trustee of Massachusetts Investors Trust, the nation’s oldest open-end investment com- pany, founded in 1924, “Suds” is one member of the three-man committee which calls the shots for the income fund. He regards consumer interest as the basis for an economic recovery.
Sel Atherton, senior vice president of the First Agricultural National Bank of Berk- shire County, Mass., was recently elected to the board of direc- tors and named execu- tive vice president. After graduation, he studied at N.Y.U., Harvard, the National Credit Office, and the Stonier Graduate School of Banking. Sel was assistant trea- surer of the Manufacturers Trust Cos. in New York and vice president of the First National Bank of Lewiston-Auburn, Me., before joining First Agricultural in 1961. He was elected a vice president in 1962 and senior vice president in 1966. A director of several corporations, Sel and wife Margery have four children.
Never let it be said that this column doesn’t include some item of controversy at least every other month. Woody Klein provides it this time with his new book, “Lindsay’s Promise: The Dream That Failed” (MacMillan). Coming from a dis- tinguished newspaper reporting career. Woody served as the New York Mayor’s first press secretary.
“Time” described the book as “a major journalistic unhorsing. . . . The Mayor is depicted as often petulant and pompous, obsessed with his image, a fumbling administrator influenced by inexperienced, power-hungry aides.” Long Island’s influen- tial “Newsday” said that Woody “paints a grim picture in this fascinating book.”
Let me close with a few observations on this year’s Alumni Fund and a well-deserved pat on the back to head agent Howie Bead and his hard-working teams. The grand total came to just over $2,000,000, slightly off from 1969 in both total dollars and total contributors. Our Class followed the pattern, off $2,691 and 39 contributors.
Say what you will about the states of the stock and money markets, which have more significant impact on the Third Century Fund. Such observations, however, ignore what is to me a highly significant fact. The average Fund gift was up $1.29 over 1969; the average 1951 contribution, up $1.05!
I can only conclude that the growing turmoil in the groves of academe, including Dartmouth, has provided some alumni with an excuse to pick up their marbles and go home. I choose that description very deliberately because I believe very strongly that such an alumni reaction is just as juvenile as some of the conduct to which people who should have more sense have reacted in this fashion.
I put my stock in the troubled younger generation, and I respect them for many of the reasons why they are troubled. I also put my stock in Dartmouth and other private educational institutions to play an important role in bringing the real closer to the ideal in our nation and world. I humbly suggest that it is time for all of us to consider seriously the alternatives. I sincerely hope that none of us is so stodgy upon reaching forty that the question is simply one of whose ox is being gored.
Secretary. Western Electric Cos. Room 1250, 195 Broadway New York, N. Y. 10007 T YGQ.SIA.TCT Dolly Rd.’ Hopkinton, N. H. 03301
