Letters to the Editor

The Mecklin Letter

TO THE EDITOR:

Just a few comments on John Mecklin's letter in the October issue. From what I have read about Vietnam, Ho Chi Minh did not start in the 1930's to organize, but he went to Woodrow Wilson in Paris in 1918 and asked for help in gaining independence. He was refused.

In 1954 at Geneva it was agreed that general elections were to be held in 1956. Our government denied these elections because we knew Ho Chi Minh was the popular leader and would win.

We have propped up unpopular corrupt governments since then and only through our support have they survived. In the most recent elections opposing candidates were thrown in jail and just recently an article in the Boston Globe cited the fact that there are more political prisoners in South Vietnam than there have been in the world before.

Also, who did we support before Castro—Battista. A corrupt dictatorship. Who has put down the popular movements in South America and Central America—the C.I.A. and our military support. What did we do about the Greek takeover—nothing. We support it.

It seems that everywhere a popular uprising occurs we are there to support the right wing, which naturally through repressive measures controls the economy where naturally we have vested economic interests. Why don't we stop the flag-waving and the rhetoric about democracy and freedom, and admit we go along with our vested interests at whatever cost to those minority groups that want a decent life but from whom we can't gain a dollar?

No wonder the generation coming along is slightly sick at their stomachs. Our hypocrisy is glaring to them. Before the total collapse comes, perhaps we had better take heed of their honesty, their feelings, their ideals; maybe they can restore to this country what it has lost—its integrity.

Cambridge, Mass.

TO THE EDITOR:

I have been tempted over the years to write about my reaction to some article or other in the Alumni Magazine. Each time I dilly dallied and ended up doing nothing. However, I was so moved by "Dear Mr. Cunningham" that I will finally break down and take "pen in hand." It was a really tremendous letter in my opinion—well organized, reasoned, pithy, a bit of levity, etc.

After showing the article to a few friends, I have been beseiged by requests for additional copies. Each had tried to explain his views to his own children—unsuccessfully for the most part. Now with Mr. Mecklin's article for support they wanted to try once again.

Yardley, Pa.

On Toxic Metals

TO THE EDITOR:

As a physician practicing in the field of environmental medicine and industrial toxicology, I fully appreciate the contributions of Dr. Henry Schroeder to trace metal physiology. Your October references to his work were, I suspect, too brief to permit the reader to derive accurate information on several points, and I should like to offer comments which may set things straight. With respect to cadmium, "a major factor in hypertension," it is fair to say that the specific cause of arterial hypertension cannot be established in over 90% of patients with elevated blood pressures. Persons with clear evidence of cadmium poisoning are not hypertensive, and extensive epidemiological surveys have not shown that cadmium is associated with hypertension. If we are looking for specific metallic elements which might be implicated in the etiology of hypertension, sodium would be a much better candidate.

With respect to lead, there is no evidence that current levels of this element in man cause impairment of health and that now unknown diseases due to environmental "lead toxicity will emerge within a few years." The levels of lead in American urban dwellers, Australian aborigines, and natives of the Andes and the Kalahari Desert are about the same. It is inappropriate to imply that a health hazard exists from this kind of exposure.

This is an important point because the prime alternative to leaded fuels are those which contain highly aromatic constituents which have serious toxicological properties. Scientific, industrial and political people who are responsible for the composition of such fuels and the readers of the Magazine should recognize that the solutions to environmental health problems are rarely achieved by simply "getting rid" of lead or cadmium or phosphates or beryllium. An intelligent approach requires that the benefits associated with these materials, the measures required to control undesirable contamination problems, and the hazards posed by competing materials cannot be excluded from consideration.

Cincinnati, Ohio

Terminal Affliction?

TO THE EDITOR:

Reading the "Surveys of Dartmouth Opinion" has made me very sad.

Poor Dartmouth! The Old Girl has just about "had it." It sounds as if the doctor has just said, "Cancer—terminal—looks like Coeducation."

With my tear-filled, rheumy eyes I can make out a sign over the entrance to my old dormitory, altered, of course, to accommodate females, reading "Any sport in the dorm." Sorry, Dante, et al.

Well, with everyone else doing it, why not Dartmouth? Why be different? Let's change her colors, too. Let's make them Pink and Blue. Green and White just doesn't seem very appropriate any more.

Francesville, Ind.

Recipe for Staying Loose

TO THE EDITOR:

In deference to the countless millions of senior alumni who have marveled in wonder over my awesome ability to stay downloose in this Time of Turmoil, I have at long last consented to share my secret.

It's really very simple. You, too, can do it.

All you have to do is follow the easy three-step technique which I call (rather neatly, I think) "Rapport—Not War." It goes like this:

1. First, you Put It All Together (groovy).

2. Next, you Let It All Hang Out (wow).

3. Then, you float around the countryside picking your sitar and Showing Your Thing (well, obscenity, man, how else can they know where It's at?).

I guess, in the final analysis, it all comes down to one fundamental question: what do you want, bad manners or bad taste?

Mountain Lakes, N. J.

Reply to Prof. Luehrmann

TO THE EDITORS

I must take exception to Mr. Luehrmann's views recorded in the November issue under the title "The ROTC Decision: An Explanation."

The analogy of ROTC with a hypothetical JETC, while somewhat humorous, unfortunately is insulting to the intelligence of even the average reader of the ALUMNI MAGAZINE. I would appreciate being advised of the precise number of Dartmouth ROTC students conscripted into the enlisted ranks of the military as a direct result of their ROTC affiliation. This number, as a percent of the total Dartmouth ROTC population over the same period, would be most interesting, as well as the specific of such cases.

It is my recollection, unfortunate as it may be, that probably some significant percent—perhaps as high 10% — of the courses and faculty at Dartmouth in my day hardly personified academic excellence. Such an appraisal is highly subjective; suffice it to say that the possible 10% of courses taken for credit by students involved in ROTC does not seem excessive when compared with some other courses offered and/or required by the College.

The issue of academic independence is valid. The solution to dissolve the College's association instead of correcting ROTC's acknowledged ills is a highly debatable decision, and one which indicates running away from rather than facing a problem.

There are sincere and intelligent people in America who see in the Indochina War legitimate similarities to World War II and Korea. The all-encompassing statement that "today's fathers ... are delivering their sons to a war which they themselves do not fight in any sense" is an expression of personal opinion and hardly one of indisputable fact.

The prospect of a professional military with little or no civilian authority and without the benefit of private academic influence, is frightening indeed. By the time its results are realized, it will be too late; and the decision-makers of 1970 will no longer be available for the accounting.

Emmaus, Pa.

Address Denounced

TO THE EDITOR:

After reading "A Student Address" by Wallace L. Ford II '70 in the recent issue of the ALUMNI MAGAZINE I concluded that indeed Dartmouth must be a racist institution. For those of you who have not had the opportunity to read the article I will recapitulate. Mr. Ford, as one of the lucky few black students who survived the apparently terrible Dartmouth College experience, was given the opportunity to express his distorted views after the traditional address by the valedictorian. However, there was no speaker representing each of those other minority groups such as Catholics, Jews, Chinese, Polish, American Indian, etc. Permitting one group to be represented without the others is clearly discriminatory—or does this only apply when a leftist or radical wishes to be heard?

I might add that if the raving in this particular speech by Mr. Wallace L. Ford II is typical of the high caliber of Dartmouth students today than either the College or the admissions office or both is slipping. This kind of Marxist inspired demagoguery has no place in an institution of higher learning much less at a graduation exercise.

Hockessin, Del.

Dartmouth Wives Write

TO THE EDITOR:

The antics of the half-naked, bottletanned Indian cheerleader (eliminated from the football scene as an ethnic parody!) used to evoke a loyal response from an enthusiastic Dartmouth cheering section. Not so today. The apathetic and dispirited young cheerleaders, some black and some female (indicating Dartmouth's racial and sexual integration, no doubt), made feeble attempts with their high-schoolish, crepe-paper pompoms to arouse the same response at the recent Harvard-Dartmouth game, and failed sadly. Nary a "Wah Hoo Wah" or "Glory to Dartmouth." And where is the exciting band of yesteryear? Musical comedy is all right in its place, but between the halves at a college game the band should play some rousing college songs. This year there were no "Backs Tearing By" (except, fortunately, on the field). No "Dartmouth's in Town Again," although a splendid team proved that it was! Where is the old pizzazz? This sentimental old Dartmouth fan (daughter of a Dartmouth man '08, and wife of a Dartmouth man '34) misses it!

Marblehead, Mass.

GENTLEMEN:

I am a Dartmouth wife who has been reading with considerable amusement your series of letters to the editor concerning Coeducation at Dartmouth. May I respectfully submit that since you gentlemen are only MEN, you are seeing things all wrong end to.

Now, those of you who are married have learned from long and painful experience that, while that was what your wife said, that wasn't what she meant, and a similar linguistic difficulty seems to have arisen in this coeducation at Dartmouth business.

As an example of this, permit me to digress a little. While I was at a lovely family-type summer resort last summer a bevy of young ladies attired in discreet bikinis made their appearance on the beach. That they were there to swim was made plain to a pride of young men who quickly departed the water with a severe case of frostbite. They sat near me in a group bitterly bewailing the lack of sincerity among the "other" sex, and I had to laugh. I explained to the young men that attached to the lower hemisphere of each Bikini was a clearly legible tag: FOR MARRIAGE ONLY. YOU MAY EXAMINE, BUT DON'T TOUCH.

Some of the young men snorted their contempt of so archaic an explanation and would have no part of it; it was dishonest and they had more respect for girls than to think they would stoop to a scheme as low as that. Others looked thoughtful and waded back in. Two wandered over to the Mamas who were just now coming down to the beach, smiled winningly, and asked if anyone knew of a decent, inexpensive restaurant because with all this fried food they were getting tummyaches.

The results were predictable. The couples who waded out of the water were earnestly discussing . . . earnest things. They were introduced to mama with the name of the college ever to slightly emphasized because I believe, for a good college, you get green stamps. The tummyache boys were introduced by mama with the sprightly remark that maybe they'd better take those poor boys up to the house and, Ginny, why don't you fix some of that marrrrrvelous. . . . . As far as I know, the boy who was looking for a sincere, honest girl is still up there huddied glumly on the beach while the winter snows swirl around him.

I propose a test, gentlemen. Ask your college-age daughter, relative or friend just what she expects to get out of college. Discuss with her courteously and sincerely her educational aims because as she speaks with you, she probably means everything she says. She may be genuinely interested in becoming a biophysicist or environmental control technician. Respect her sincerity and tell her that you do. Then drop your bomb. Tell her slowly and distinctly that she reminds you of a girl who turned down a proposal of marriage in her junior year of college from the captain of the football team who was accepting a position with Standard Oil that would necessitate his leaving for Nicaragua immediately to take up residence in a home with a complete staff of servants.

Tell her that the girl felt it was her duty to her future career to complete her education and go on for her Master's in Elementary Education.

Watch her eyes. Nine times out of ten, you will look straight into the naked female soul, which is a shattering experience for an unprepared male. If your girl emits a "God, what a fool" look, she does not belong at Dartmouth, because she will take her courses until she meets her man and then . . . forget it. If she doesn't find him in college, she'll work until she either does or takes what the market offers. Either way, Dartmouth will be wasted on the likes of her. But if, when you spring your trap and you are looking her right in the eyes, she can nod her head and say "Of course" without giggling or blushing, by all means let her in Dartmouth. She'll be a credit to the place.

West Islip, N. Y.