Letters to the Editor

How Do You Give a Rouse?

TO THE EDITOR:

In the April issue the reader is asked to "Give a Rouse for" 19 alumni who have achieved distinction. As they all merit our congratulations, I decided to act upon this suggestion. All of a sudden, however, it came to me that I didn't know just how to go about giving a rouse.

I therefore consulted Webster's New World Dictionary (the College Edition, of course) and learned that "a rouse" is "a carouse." Under the C's, Webster defines a carouse as "a carousing; hilarious drinking party." A second meaning—"a glassful drunk all at once, especially as a toast"—is obsolete and presumably may be ignored.

Now and then some of us might manage to give a rouse as defined by Webster but 19 or so rouses a month seem too many; particularly for members of the older classes. This leads me to suspect that the originator of the "rouse" proposal has in mind a procedure different from that described by Webster. If so, I am sure that a number of alumni beside myself would appreciate his guidance so that in the future they can felicitate deserving graduates in an appropriate manner without damage to their health or disturbance of their neighbors.

Bradford, Vt.

EDITOR'S NOTE: The new heading was swiped from Richard Hovey, who in Menof Dartmouth urges us all "to give a rouse for the college on the hill ... the loyal sons who love her" etc. Although Hovey was not averse to the sort of rouse Mr. Dyche writes about, we have always thought he meant a rousing cheer. The Oxford Universal Dictionary says that "rouse" in the sense of a carousal is now archaic. It cites "give a rouse" as one use of the word, and also cites several meanings from Shakespeare, the most appropriate of which would seem to be "to rise up, to stand on end," which is what we should do in honor of Dartmouth alumni achievements. Moving one word along in the Oxford dictionary, we come to "rouser," which is defined as "One who, or that which, is remarkable in some respect."

Finally, regarding "Wah Hoo Wah" which has been replaced, we decided it did not make sense for the Magazine to be giving a cheer which the present-day College no longer uses—and we were shaken to learn that "wah hoo wah" in the Sioux language means sodomy.

"Pretty Weird"

TO THE EDITOR:

It seems neurotic that Hayden Young '68 would make an analogy between a conservationist and an Army Sergeant Major who "liked" five tours in Vietnam. Pretty weird.

The name Controlled Environmental Corporation is a put on, Hayden. The houses will sit where deer fed in winter, where trees stood. Roads will interrupt the travel patterns and the breeding of animals. All for a few who have the money to "recreate" themselves. Please think of what the word means! How can one be recreated and be exploitative at the same time?

By the way, I am a teacher and long-time war protester, and I can list some of the inventions you might attribute to necessity: 300 cubic inch car engines, electric blenders for daiquiris, plastic containers, TV sets, and insecticides ... all the trappings of the rugged individuals who will move into that sacred forest at Sunapee. The Dartmouth Outing Club of old could have shown you better ways.

Plainfield, Vt.

What Is the Indian Symbol?

TO THE EDITOR:

What is the Indian symbol? It is many things to as many people. Just as varied as the symbols are among the many tribes of the Indians of this land. Since the Indians of the past and those of today can not agree and thus direct me in the proper path, I must resort to my own experience in my life of 77 years to find the answer.

In my home to be a good fellow, carrying his share of the load, was to be "a good Indian." For me and my eight brothers and sisters, that came from the period when my father was principal of the school which the Old Town. Maine, Indians attended.

It was more than folklore, costumes, symbols the Indians gave to my family and youthful life. Each symbol, each costume, each headdress meant achievement, for each had to be earned for one to wear or display. Over and above all, such honor came only when one had helped the family, tribe or clan, neighbors, or town.

Where did Mother and Father get this incentive to inspire their nine children? Certainly not on a school teacher's salary in Maine of those days. The Indians they taught, who visited our home, transferred to them a way of life they gave to their own, so our family could be as sturdy and reliable, no matter what adversities of life.

So when I hear the expression "The Dartmouth Indians," I know my college is a match for any Yale '"Bull Dog" or a Princeton "Tiger," be it in sports or studies, and I take just pride, as did my classmates, Chiefs Ralph Walkingstick and Bertram Bluesky, when in their rightful chieftain costumes, they introduced the Indian yell that glorious . fall years ago. That was Dartmouth, our opponents, the stands on both sides at their best, when all gave a roar of approval!

So to me the Indian symbol at Dartmouth is not an issue: rather is it a challenge and an inspiration to be at God's work to make peace and care for those in need. Those are the thoughts that call clear to me as I drive north and see the symbol on the spire of Baker Library. Can I, can the Indians of today, be worthy of Wheelock's dream? Thus may Dartmouth never abdicate these traditions because of false emotions, lack of humor, or joy and sense of fun of life. May Indians and white men take pride that our college is what it is because of the Indian.

Did not our Indians teach the world to play team sports, to thus get folks to stop being individuals and cooperate together for the common good? To me that is the socalled "Dartmouth Spirit"—one for all—all for one. To me every Indian symbol, be it tomahawk, tepee, scalp, peace pipe, you name it, is a saga of life that sets this country apart from all others and Dartmouth from other colleges.

I have never condoned at any time our country's reservation policy, any more than our other segregation activities. But are these not all in the past? Are we not now seriously trying to work together as one people to correct these national ills? Surely it is right there we need a Dartmouth Indian with all his symbols to help us, much as the cross inspires those of us who believe there was a Christ. May Dartmouth ever keep its Indian tradition and folklore which inspired him who founded it.

Lansdowne, Pa.

An "Official" Indian Writes

TO THE EDITOR!

I have just read the letter from John D. Bryant in the April issue. The Executive Officer of the Tucker Foundation makes the point that a Native American of the Class of 1943 made it through graduation. That, gentlemen, is me. I'd like to point out to Mr. Bryant that I did not graduate until 1946, due to a small war that was going on.

Mr. Bryant should have a little more sense, such as should be expected of an executive officer. Yes, dammit, I went to Dartmouth, and I graduated just as I graduated from our lakes and rivers and axes and totes. I learned from a man named Ross McKenney, an illiterate woodsman called Jack Johnson (who caught pneumonia trying to get a dog out of the woods north of Moosehead). I learned from my father, Henry Red Eagle—who is no chief—how to handle a canoe in white water. Yes, gentlemen, I went to Dartmouth, and I will take no horse about it. I guess that Roland Sundown and I are the only ones left, and Sunny doesn't say much.

I met nothing at Dartmouth except a little bit of honor and a little bit of challenge from those who wanted to prove that an Indian was inferior. I managed to handle the challenge, and I was a little bit abashed at the honor (which I didn't deserve). I rubbed their noses in it.

I saw nothing wrong with the Indian symbol. Sure, a lot of ignorant waa'nooch tried to make a big thing of it, and I didn't have to sell my heritage or even to fight for it. If the militant redskins (and that's what we call them) want to make an issue, let them charge ahead. I met some arrogance, for a start, but I stopped that on my own. I didn't need a movement to prove that I was as good as any student at Dartmouth. I scrapped on even terms with the likes of Jim Olsen and Phil Harmon, and I couldn't beat them. It was a fair fight, and I lost. I ain't gonna try claiming that Jim won because he was a Swede or that Phil won because he came from an exclusive suburb. I was beaten fair and square, and there was no question whether I was an Indian or not. Ray Wolfe and Rom Crego creamed me when I tried to run the ball, and Maury Dampier had a hand in it. Now actually, all of those men were not taking out an offensive against The Great American Indian. Those jokers told me that I was either a football player or I was not. They didn't give a whoop in hell whether I was an Indian or an Italian or an Irishman: they were going to stop me, and they did. Matter of fact, I didn't care. Maury hit me so hard that I thought he'd broken my leg. He helped me up, laughing, and said "Try it again."

As (I guess) the last Native American Graduate up to 1970, I guess I'm official. I guess I am still Sagamore to these kids, but they ain't my tribe. I do not like their approach. I have a lot of things that I do not like, but the Native Americans at Dartmouth still do not speak for me.

I'd suggest that the militant horseback Injuns and Mr. Bryant take a close look at symbolism, and I'd recommend that they consult the works of Hayakawa, the Journalof the International Society for GeneralSemantics, and Behavioral Science. By gritting my teeth in the tradition of the Great American Stoic, I can bypass the frenzied mouthings of the adolescent wild ones. It seems to me, though, that the Executive Officer of the Tucker Foundation should have a little bit of maturity.

Mahkway-Paykwa Sagamore of the Maliseet

Thomaston, Me.

More on Indians

TO THE EDITOR:

These days, I find the letters to the editor more fun to read than the news about the College. For some while, we had debates over "should there be ladies going through the front (or back) doors of the College" and now we have a spate of letters on "should the Indian symbol be chiselled off all stone cornices of the College."

If indeed we started as a college for Indians, then maybe we should try to remember what President Dickey said time and again: We were (are) at Dartmouth to learn how to be members of a community. Thus, if we are truly concerned about Indians, what are we doing about the Indians who are "out there" in the community?

In all the letters, I have yet to see any suggestions as to how we, as responsible citizens in the community, might afford a helping hand to the Indians in the community, on the reservations. For two years or so, I have been somewhat fortunate to be accepted by one of the Indian groups in Arizona (partly because my skin is darker and I am not an Anglo) to help look into ways Indians can implement some health services on some of the reservations.

Now I realize Indians are becoming much more militant and some refuse the help of non-Indians. Nevertheless, there are still large groups of Indians who want help and are quite willing to accept help if offered. I feel strongly that if we do enter into some community services with Indians, then our Indian symbol will take on new significances and we will not be seen only as some college taking on a symbol that signifies nothing.

So why do we look inward all the time? Maybe we should start thinking about what is in the community, out there.

Toronto, Canada

TO THE EDITOR:

In order to placate the "demands" of a small handful of minority students, the College is being asked to do away with one of its proudest traditions, the use of "Indians" as a symbol and nickname for Dartmouth athletic teams. What monumental implications such a step would have for the welfare of American Indians everywhere!

The genuine depth of concern for their own people evidenced by these malcontents is remarkable, to say the very least. How can we begin to improve the lot of native Americans still living in squalor on reservations? Conquer poverty, disease, and alcholism? Help to provide total employment for Indians? Replace the bumbling bureaucrats who have populated the Bureau of Indian Affairs since its inception? Upgrade living standards?

Why, simple, of course. Just force Dartmouth to drop "Indians" as a nickname for its athletic teams, and overnight, the plight of native Americans will miracuously disappear. What a glorious "victory" this will be!

Certainly, the logic (if it is that) behind the demands of these protesters fairly boggles the mind. Carried to other, similar situations, it becomes even more ludicrous. Presumably, all the troubles in Northern Ireland, for example, would be resolved overnight, if only Notre Dame would stop calling its athletic teams "the Fighting Irish." Marvelous! How come somebody didn't think of that before?

The most ludicrous part of this whole sorry spectacle is that President Kemeny and members of the College administration apparently listen to such nonsensical gibberish. Are they running a college, or a kindergarten?

Acton, Mass.

TO THE EDITOR:

The Bulletin, as other recent releases from the College, hinted that next year the Dartmouth Indians—like Stanford's Indians and "all-men's colleges"—may be a thing of the past.

It has been hard enough thinking of "dear old Dartmouth" as a coeducational institution. To let a few dozen native Indians coerce thousands of Dartmouth Indians into becoming the Dartmouth Red Sox is preposterous. It is a proud symbol, and 99.9% of us have always considered it such.

Seattle, Wash.

TO THE EDITOR:

What goes on at Dartmouth anyway? Already most of the traditions and symbols which were Dartmouth and which endeared her to us over the last 50 years and more have gradually been done away with due to pressures from this group or that. Unless the present trend is corrected at once somebody will demand that Dartmouth Hall be torn down and replaced by a multi-story nudist camp, or the like.

My reasons for writing this is that I hope the Administration at Dartmouth College has the "guts" this time to tell those few Johnny-come-lately Indians in the student body to pack up and go elsewhere if they don't like Dartmouth as it is. Stanford gave in—are we to be copycats again? Let us hang on to what little of the OLD DARTMOUTH we have left.

Worcester, Mass.

Four Questions

TO THE EDITOR:

President Kemeny outlined clearly and forcefully the financial problems facing private liberal arts colleges today. His exposition suggests certain conclusions, which he did not draw, and perhaps I shall be read out of the tribe for putting them on paper.

1. Since each student pays only half of the costs of his undergraduate education, the College deficit will increase in proportion to the number of students. Recently, the Trustees and administration decided to increase the student body by about 1000. Was this wise? Where is the extra money to be found?

2. Inasmuch as "the admission of a much larger number of students who can pay only a very small fraction of the cost ... is a ... very important factor in ... today's financial crisis," perhaps the private colleges should set their sights a little lower, and not bankrupt themselves by taking in more of such students than they can afford to support.

3. President Kemeny says that "graduate education is ... quite complicated." Does he mean by this abstruse remark that it is even more expensive than undergraduate education? If so, can Dartmouth afford the Ph.D. programs that were begun not too long ago?

4. The "Yale plan puzzles me. Since liberal art colleges are short of money already, how are they going to get by for the next few years if they educate many students now and tell them "pay us later"? Won't the colleges be bankrupt before the pay-back time comes?

Logansport, Ind.

EDITOR'S NOTE: The portion of President Kemeny's American Alumni Council address printed in the March issue dealt with higher education in general rather than with Dartmouth specifics, which he did mention but which had previously been reported by us.

Regarding Point 1, we quote from our December story: "The College's new educational pattern, being called The Dartmouth Plan, projects an increase in undergraduate enrollment from the current level of 3200 to approximately 4000 by the fall of 1975. Of that total, 3000 will be men and 1000 or more will be women. Year-round use of the College plant for four full terms instead of three will mean, however, that no more than 3400 students will be on campus at any given time. The plan permits a 25% increase in enrollment at minimum cost, and possibly at a break-even or better level when fully in operation."

Regarding Point 4, a college adopting a deferred tuition plan, which permits the charging of more realistic tuition fees, does not have to wait until pay-back time. Tuition is paid currently by students to whom long-term loans are made with money borrowed from lending institutions.

Awaiting the Price Tag

TO THE EDITOR:

The Dartmouth Plan is without a price tag: at least for the scrutiny of the crass alumni.

Not even a reasonable facsimile of cost estimates for the fancy and fabulous new concept of administrative policy has been released.

The alumni are asked to "buy a pig in a poke." Inferentially, the Trustees, maintaining the classic posture of "father knows best," refuse to reveal any financial features of the complex and, probably, costly Dartmouth Plan.

Is such secrecy warranted or imperative? Or, is it just further manifestation of the Trustees' assumed right to avoid alumni counsel, countenance and possible contradiction?

How long, O! Honorable but Muted Board of Trust (as Eleazar would say), must the benighted and bemused alumni await the coming of your cost revelations?

Hampton Falls, N. H.

13 Ski Coaches

TO THE EDITOR:

In response to last month's letter by William P. Kimball '28 (Ski Coaches Skipped) I call to your attention this sequence of Dartmouth ski coaches from 1923 to the present: Anthony Dietrich, 1923-26; Sig Steinwall, 1927; German Raab, 1928-29; Otto Schniebs, 1930-36; Walter Prager, 1937-41; Percy Rideout '40, 1942; Robert Meservey '43, 1943; William Ashley '45, 1944; Selden Hannah '35 and Edward Blood, 1945; Walter Prager, 1946-47; Alfred Densmore '44, 1948; Walter Prager, 1949-57; C. Allison Merrill, 1958-1971; James Page '63, coach-elect, 1972.

I commend Mr. Kimball, former chairman of the D.O.C. board of trustees, for his discerning eye.

Hanover, N.H.

A Different Gratitude

TO THE EDITOR:

In your April issue, Anthony Blecher '67 saluted the College and its ROTC program for enabling him to have two years of active service as an Army officer, a learning experience he has found "invaluable" in his business career. "The army," he wrote, "extended the College's efforts to teach me some of the pragmatic aspects of life before I had to become a full participant."

Mr. Blecher's distinction between rehearsal years and the eventual full life (not now open to some 55,000 American contemporaries, and to perhaps ten times that number of Vietnamese, Laotians and Cambodians of assorted ages) is his own to make, as is his choice of what to be grateful to the College for. Perhaps, though, he'll allow at least one volunteer GI of an earlier vintage to prefer remembering gratefully today that in Hanover in June 1970 George McGovern was given an honorary degree, along with Charles Bolte '41, a fellow veteran of WW II. And that on that day, Dr. McGovern may have touched off the active campaign that a number of us hope will make him President-elect in November, and firm finisher of the Indochinese war—lock, stock, barrel and bombers—in the first weeks of 1973.

Greens Farms, Conn.

In Praise of Robert Northern

TO THE EDITOR:

May I briefly draw the attention of my fellow alumni to one of the newer members of the Dartmouth community, Mr. Robert Northern, composer, French horn virtuoso, artist-in-residence, and member of the College music faculty.

I recently had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Northern and seeing him in action, both in class and as the conductor of what I can only describe as a creative experience entitled Symbols, a lengthy compendium of musical works by Mr. Northern, his students and several distinguished guest artists, which was presented in February at the Hopkins Center. Thus, I was able to observe not only his methods but their results, and on the evidence of both, I can only say that he has my complete awe and respect, both as an artist and, more importantly to Dartmouth, as a teacher. With inspiration and affectionate rapport, Mr. Northern is succeeding in awakening his students to their inherent creative powers. He doesn't impose his own standards and discipline upon them; rather, he acts as a catalyst upon their sensitivity, to themselves and the music in them and their surroundings. And the students respond, to the extent that each of them is blessed with a higher consciousness of his or her potential musical creativity.

Out here beyond the boundaries of Hanover, we tend to regard Dartmouth in light of the current issues, coeducation, year-round studies, the demands of the Alumni Fund, even (maybe mostly) the success of the football teams. It's easy to forget that the basic ongoing commitment of the College is to undergraduate education, that the first priority of Dartmouth should be to insure the maintenace of a high-quality faculty. With this in mind, may I commend Dartmouth for the existence of Robert Northern in its community. As a (peripheral) member of that community myself, I think we are very fortunate to have him.

Cambridge, Mass.

Whitman at Dartmouth

TO THE EDITOR:

Reading Whitman's Leaves of Grass, I find he read "As a Strong Bird on Pinions Free" as a Commencement Poem at Dartmouth on June 26, 1872. Thought this might interest you and others.

Muskogee, Okla.