Letters to the Editor

The Opinion Survey

TO THE EDITOR:

Categorically, I reject any opinion poll of Dartmouth alumni which samples but three percent of the total; to wit, the "Survey of Dartmouth Opinion."

It is my unqualified belief that every worthy alumnus would avidly seize an opportunity to express his opinion on the questions posed by Quayle to the minuscule minority whose identity remains obscure except statistically.

In this age of cybernetics with facile calculations, erudite interpretations and adroit summarizations, surely an alumni plebescite would be not only a practicable procedure, it would be an efficacious and reliable method of producing a genuine and absolute alumni opinion to which each alumnus would be democratically committed.

Expensive? Not at all! Do it the democratic way: levy a poll tax—one vote, one buck. No buck—no vote—no complaint!

As it is, each of us unpolled members of the 97% majority can easily and justifiably derogate—and reject—the Quayle Poll.

I here by do so with all of the vehemence at the command of my 53 years as an alumnus!

Hampton Falls, N. H.

Editor's Note: More than a mere countingof votes, the Quayle survey was conductedon the basis of lengthy personal, in-depthinterviews, which obviously could not bedone with the entire alumni body. Such aprofessional survey among a scientificallyselected sample, it is claimed, provides anaccurate reading of opinion among theentire alumni population within 2 or 3percent.

TO THE EDITOR:

I read the Surveys of Dartmouth Opinion with interest. I hope that its findings generally were more accurate than its national figure of ten percent for Jews. Although statistics in the area of religion are imprecise, largely because of the hostility of some small but loud splinter groups to any inclusion of religious questions in the census, the probable Jewish population of the country as a whole is approximately three percent. Although the Survey spoke of national percentages, rather than student percentages only, the probable percentage of Jewish college students is approximately eight percent.

Interestingly, the percentage of Jewish undergraduates at Dartmouth parallels the percentage of Jewish college students generally, although one would expect that the percentage of Jewish college students would gradually decline. With college easily available to an increasing majority of young people, the greater motivation which has been one of the principal reasons for Jewish over-representation becomes less significant.

Southport, Conn.

TO THE EDITOR:

Many thanks for your supplement entitled "Surveys of Dartmouth Opinion."

Since 32,000 does not seem to be an unmanageable number, why not poll the entire alumni (by mail) on the questions submitted to only 1,005 of us?

Besides establishing whether the "scientific" method employed by Oliver Quayle and Company really works, the College would have some really conclusive information about how we all feel about such controversial issues as coeducation, campus problems, and admissions policies.

Chevy Chase, Md.

TO THE EDITOR:

I thought you might be interested in the enclosed clipping in yesterday's Philadelphia Evening Bulletin (a criticism of the Ivy League's repudiation of ROTC).

This, in view of the fact that the administration, the faculty and students—if I understand correctly—have decided to eliminate ROTC on the Dartmouth campus.

I was very much opposed to it at the time and I only regret I was not one of the alumni interviewed for the questionnaire, which by the way I found very interesting.

Philadelphia, Pa.

A Day to Remember

TO THE EDITOR:

It has been my good fortune to visit Hanover many times while the College was in session. I do not go there to recapture the past. It is all very well to gaze at the lovely white-walled Dartmouth Row and remember 1912, but nostalgia is a cracked and cloudy mirror, and in it I cannot see the living Dartmouth that I have come to know and love. I find it as I watch the students going about their business. I walk across the campus and catch fragments of conversation, or drop in on a lecture, sit in a back row and get out before anyone notices an old duffer who obviously doesn't belong there. I have gone to Commons or to the Hop at noon just to see the men come busting in from classes. No one knows who I am and could care less, and that is just the way I want it to be.

My wife and I were in Hanover for three weeks last May. Our first weekend there we spent in Vermont and returned to Hanover on Sunday, May 3. We had heard of the Nixon invasion of Cambodia and were deeply disturbed by the news. On Monday afternoon we learned of the military murder of the four Kent State students. One of your correspondents, a retired colonel, has cleared up the whole matter for us by writing, "The slain students are not martyrs. They were with the wrong people, doing the wrong thing (going peaceably to their classes) in the wrong place at the wrong time." Bullets are so selective.

As we walked around the campus and down Main Street that Monday afternoon we could feel the tension that was building up. We did not know of President Kemeny's long session Sunday night with the student leaders that lasted well into morning. We returned to our motel to await the event. It came at ten o'clock that night. As we listened to the president's magnificent address appealing for measured and responsible action by the whole Dartmouth com- munity, we knew that the College had another great president.

May 5, 1970, was a day neither of us will ever forget. The College never looked more beautiful than it did on that bright spring morning. We sat down on the Green among the students with the feeling that we were just where we ought to be. It was difficult to hear just what the speakers were saying, but that was all right, for we were interested in trying to capture the mood of those around us. They were very quiet—moderate applause, no signs, no protests. On their faces there was tension, anxiety, and sadness. I do not pretend to know what was going through their minds as they sat there, many of them with their heads bowed. I only know that one alumnus was doing a lot of soul-searching on his own.

After the meeting broke up, I talked with some of them and told them I was never so proud of Dartmouth as I was on that May morning. They asked me to what class I belonged, and 1 told them I graduated in 1912. They looked at me incredulously and in every instance exclaimed, "Oh, my gosh!' I leave it to the reader to decide for himself what that exclamation meant. They talked to me simply and directly, thanked me warmly for my words of appreciation, shook my hand and smiled—the only smiles I saw that morning.

I submit that no group of Dartmouth students ever before was given the educational opportunity that these men experienced during May 1970. Together they faced the hard, bitter facts of life in their country, torn and misled nearly to the point of destruction—facts that cut through to the very heart of education. How could anyone expect them to sit inert and unprotesting in a non-political wilderness not crying out against the madness and injustices of our times? I wish that the alumnus, class of 1926, who wrote from the gambling capital of the United States had been sitting there beside me. He probably Vould have done a little soul-searching, too. If he had done so, he might not have written demanding that "the trustees investigate a college administration which allows students to traipse off to Washington probably neglecting their studies." Apparently he wants them to get the kind of "book larnin" he received. Only that kind of education will get his support. His is a voice crying in the wilderness that Dr. William Ayers Arrowsmith described in his Commencement Address as "a vast geriatric spa rabid with fear and hatred of the young."

Whatever the outcome of the decision of the Dartmouth Community to take political action this fall may be, one thing is clear to this ancient alumnus. No group is better prepared to give America in the coming years the kind of leadership it so desperately needs.

Wooster, Ohio

A One-Sided June

TO THE EDITOR:

I waited this long to write this letter so that I would cool off after reading the July issue of the ALUMNI MAGAZINE.

Here are a few of the things that bothered me:

(1) The senior symposium addressed by Senator McGovern, who also received an honorary degree from Dartmouth. Senator McGovern is further to the left than Senator Joe McCarthy was to the right. I see no offsetting senator to McGovern being asked to speak at Dartmouth. Obviously, this reflects the feelings of the people who issued the invitation to the speakers at this symposium, Professor Falk's statement, and I quote, "Another reality the United States has been unable to recognize is the reality of Red China." This is a bunch of words that means nothing. It is a cliche. Membership in the United Nations, obviously, is for peaceloving nations. It was never intended to be for everyone in the world when it was sold to the American people. His statement that we also support a minority government in Vietnam is contrary to the facts, which he must know. Here again we have an extreme leftwinger with no counterbalancing comment for the students to hear....

(2) In the honorary degrees, I noticed that Mr. Bolte says that atomic war is the ultimate threat to mankind. The ultimate threat to mankind is the loss of freedom if they let the communists take over.

(3) The address of Wallace Ford '70. His statements that "Fred Hampton and Mark Clark were killed by the animals that masquerade as Chicago police" and that "Nixon would rather put a white man on the moon than put food into a black child's stomach," and that the United States is "planning the use of concentration camps" are real beauties. I would think that the College would review the speeches of the undergraduate students at commencement. Two years ago one of the speakers uttered absolute treason and neither the president nor anyone else arose to object to it.

The last thing that upset me was in President Kemeny's address where he enunciates certain phrases which roll off the tongue easily and have little meaning or relationship to facts. I quote, "And yet your generation rightly shows us that the heritage we leave you is one of war, poverty, pollution, overpopulation, intolerance of dissent, and that most un-understandable of human failings, racial prejudice." I submit that is a one-sided picture of what our generation has left to the new generation and is in keeping with the lack of balance shown by the present administration of Dartmouth College. It makes no effort to be objective, and for that reason, to my mind is failing in its basic duty of training truthseeking young men.

Dallas, Texas

Keep the Military Military

TO THE EDITOR:

It is very heartening to read (May 1970 issue) that a former member of the Defense Department wants to "beat swords into plowshares," so to speak. Yet the means proposed for this only extends the tyranny of the Defense Department by institutionalizing civil programs under the DOD and by proposing that monies from other departments be administered by the DOD. If this is not an extension of "Fortress America," I do not know of one.

There is neither historical nor present justification for the use of the taxpayers' money in Defense programs for "Domestic Action." Historically, soldiers on the frontier, although keeping order among the Cowboys and Indians, did little to stop the rape of the land, which is still going on with more sophisticated techniques. Perhaps the reason that we have such poor railroads, intolerable compared to Europe, is that "military" men shoddily built them and ran them. The Army Corps of Engineers has planned for desecrations of land, such as the Florida Barge Canal, that make little long-term sense although they are a great investment for the quick buck. The results, therefore, of past and present military personnel and porkbarrel have been a mixed blessing to the commonweal, and it would follow that the military ideal-character type should not be foisted upon the young, the poor, and the ignorant in an age when we so desperately need civility and peace.

Of the eight points that illustrate "the impact... Defense could make in critical domestic areas," only that which involves a color bias might not be carried out by making funds available through normal, private, channels of investment; that is, corporate investment and mortgage associations. The way to release money into the private economy is to cut the government budget, especially the military budget, whose products do not circulate on the open market: those items that do not benefit the consumer directly: military hardware, moonshots, chemical and biological warfare arsenals and other economic "albatrosses." It is the old question of butter and/or guns. Given a release from the gun sector, a flood of labor would be forthcoming, as it has in the past. Students might even freely become construction workers and craftsmen. There is no need for the Defense Department to play "Big Brother" to this change, or to run a W.P.A. Program in a time of "peace," for self-interest, once free of the draft, asserts itself. My classmates are a perfect example of this....

The Defense "Domestic Action" presents some not insignificant problems. First, it further destroys commerce, by a type of semi-collusion on a long-term contract basis. Second, it puts resources directly or indirectly under the control of the DOD, rather than with private or civil authorities. Third, it preempts the possibility of an expanded desperately needed civil service, modeled on England (perhaps at the state level) for a military service. Fourth, it gives DOD economic power, by allowing it to control more contracts for both goods and services and grants. The DOD would thus have more "dollar votes." This is the type of power that Senator Proxmire (Report from Wasteland) and Seymour Melman (PentagonCapitalism) have pointed to as precisely the stumbling block in our present control of DOD. I do not wish to be misunderstood: let us have more educational facilities for the disadvantaged. Let those who have been occupationally trained in the military be of civil use. Let us have more Dartmouth ABC programs, for instance. It would be better to have thousands of private finishing schools, boarding schools, and trade schools than to have it under the military. To place such activities with the military would be a further distortion of civil society and private economy; that fact cannot be pushed aside by any opportunistic lumberjack from Idaho. Finally, a large "Domestic Action" program by DOD raises a huge bookkeeping problem: funds would come from non-DOD sources, but would be administered by DOD. More important than bookkeeping, this procedure would make the DOD look like a rose: while its power to control money rises, its budget falls or remains the same because the funds are actually coming from other departments. What a fantastic way of getting power, and, with a full-time staff, it would be even more difficult to unseat.

Tocqueville realized this in the 1830's. "Nothing is gained," he wrote, "by increasing the army among democratic peoples, because the number of aspirants always raises in exactly the same proportion as the army itself... what men want to have is constant promotion. The remedy for the vices of the army is not to be found in thearmy itself, but in the country. Democratic nations are naturally afraid of disturbance and despotism; the object is to turn these natural instincts into intelligent, deliberate and lasting tastes.... In spite of all precautions, a large army in the midst of a democratic people will always be a source of great danger. The most effectual way of diminishing that danger is to reduce the sizeof the army."

Coeducation in 1876

TO THE EDITOR:

In the light of some of the current thinking of alumni and students regarding coeducation, I submit this reference from the December 23, 1876 issue of the NewEngland Journal of Education:

"DARTMOUTH—Dartmouth College takes a long stride toward admitting women as students, by allowing a young woman to attend all class recitations and lectures and be examined with the young men, though reciting privately and only occasionally to the professors."

Pittsfield, Mass.

Continuing Education

TO THE EDITOR:

I would like to tell you how much I enjoyed the reprints of last year's Alumni College lectures. I found the series so stimulating that I even got inspired to do the outside reading, a claim, "I am afraid, I often couldn't make as an undergraduate! The series converted me from a desultory glance at my class column to an avid cover-to-cover reader. I hope that you will consider doing the same thing again this year.

Your transcription of the lecture series caused me to look around at a number of other alumni magazines; the conclusion was that Dartmouth alone uses its magazine for continuing education. I think the idea is original and very sound, and I hope that you will consider starting a regular monthly column or feature composed of one of the outstanding lectures from around campus, perhaps a different subject in a different field each month. Once again I think broadening the scope of the magazine in this way was a great idea, and I hope that it is a direction you will explore more thoroughly in the future.

FPO, New York

Graduate Study Grants Open to the Alumni

Recent Dartmouth graduates are advised that they, as well as graduating seniors, are eligible for grants for graduate study awarded by the College each year. For information and application forms write: The Committee on Graduate Fellowships, P. O. Box 674, Hanover, N. H. 03755.

JAMES B. REYNOLDS SCHOLARSHIPS

Seven or eight scholarships are awarded annually to outstanding Dartmouth graduates for study in any field in any foreign country, normally in affiliation with a formal educational institution and in any case in conformity with a definite program of study approved by the Committee on Graduate Fellowships. Applications for countries other than England are especially invited. Grants will not be made for post-doctoral study. The awards are for one year only for the sum of $2500. Adjustments in the stipend may be made in special cases when appropriate to compensate for higher than normal tuition charges at certain foreign institutions or for extraordinarily high travel expenses to countries more distant from the United States than Western Europe. Applications are due by January 22, 1971.

DARTMOUTH GENERAL FELLOWSHIPS,AND LOANS FROM THE WILLIAMHILL MEMORIAL LOAN FUND

These fellowships and loans may be used for graduate study either in the United States or abroad. They are awarded on the basis of financial need as well as academic merit. Fellowships may not exceed $1500; loans may not exceed $2OOO. A loan is often granted to supplement a fellowship. Applications are due by February 14, 1971.

During the current academic year three alumni are studying on Reynolds Scholarships: one at the University of Tubingen, Germany; one at Magdalen College, Oxford; one at the Universidad Nacional, Chile.

Seven alumni will study on Dartmouth General Fellowships: one at the School of International Affairs, George Washington University; one at Nuffield College, Oxford; one at the School of the Arts, Columbia University; one at the University of Washington; one at the University of Pennsylvania; one at the Cornell University Law School, and one at the Sloan School of Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Editor's Note: Mr. Quayle agrees that the 10percent figure for the Jewish population wasan error. It was based on a statistical studythat was not dealing with the entire nationalpopulation.