1932

When the United States Court of Appeals made its historic ruling on October 12 that President Nixon must turn over to the Federal District Court the disputed White House tape recordings possibly bearing on Watergate crimes. Judge Carl McGowan was one of the five judges who participated in the majority decision.

On September 30 Dr. Charles Edwin Odegaard, the University of Washington's "activist" president, stepped down from the post he had held for 15 years. Shortly before, the event was noted in a Sunday interview piece in TheSeattle Times under the heading, "End of an Era - A Giant Symbol Passes." Said the piece in part: "During his tenure even some of his strongest opponents eventually have had to concede that 'father knows best.' In this regard he may be one of the last of the 'old time' college presidents." Carrying out the family analogy, the article recalls that "early in his appointment, when the 'kids were growing up,' the president was a stern taskmaster with definite ideas as to what the university was to become . . . The academic departments have grown up to be adorable young adults with straight teeth and strong bones - qualities that have sometimes made them objects of envy on academia's national scene." In the interview Chuck noted that administrating has become "infinitely more complex, among the reasons being that student and others outside the university often don't go through channels - a problem from which, he believes, all social institutions are suffering. "I suppose," he said, "it is related to Settling in society which I think is almost like a cancer - distrust. In the long pull, a society gives itself up to distrust is very likely to destroy itself." Concerning Watergate he wondered whether it really "will evolve a greater awareness of the need of being good human beings ourselves as well as expecting other people to be good humans."

In August Mike Cardozo resigned the Executive Directorship of the Association of American Law Schools, having served 10 years. "Now," he writes, "I am at the beginning of the next phase of my career, consulting in the field of legal education and opening a law office in the District of Columbia. My reasons for all this are not complex, surprising, or secret; I'm writing them in a note to Mark Short for the class Newsletter. At our age, of course, everyone assumes that leaving a job means retirement, but mine is not, either early, late, or timely. It is just a change to a new career, something I have done about every ten years, and it's that time again."

"This has been a great fall in Hanover," ArtAllen writes. "The enthusiasm and participation in a huge variety of activities of the new freshman class is heart-warming and a great change from a few years ago. My work with the sailing team has been fun, and I'm very proud of our eight-man yawl team that won the Eastern big-boat championship at Annapolis last weekend, and of our freshman sailors (five boys and five girls) who have done well."

Chip and Sally Cronin found Hanover "even without a football game, nostalgic and beautiful" in October. Chip visited with Dean Hennessey at Tuck School, "then on Saturday morning I sat in with a large number of the New Generation to take the LSAT. No, I am not going to law school but I did want to see what the kids are expected to do as the first step in getting in law schools. Frankly, I thought the test proved little except that it must be very profitable for the Educational Testing Bureau in Princeton." The Cronins gave up the paper Sally was putting out in Jackson Heights, and for the past year have been operating their own registered broker-dealer and money management firm. "Beats loafing," says Chip.

Relative to our Emerson quote ("Education aims to make the man prevail over the circumstance"), Carlos Baker postcards from Princeton: "Am working on a book about Emerson now, and I certainly agree with his statement about education. No better argument for it was ever.thought of then that of preparing men and women to know by what means they have prevail over the tides of circumstance that are always flooding our properties. 'Things are in the saddle and ride mankind.' he said also in one of his poems. With proper education man himself can direct the horse (up to a point) instead of being ridden." Carlos reports a visit from Ed Marks, vacationing from Geneva — "Ed in good shape, & thinking of writing a book."

Al Rice, in Briarcliff Manor. N.Y.. notes "so many commentaries floating around at the moment that I don't care to add any, except that Emerson seems to have been wrong." JohnKeller in Toledo takes off from the quote:

"The philosophical stand-off between 'growth' proponents (Class of 1932?) and ecology people who say technological expansion cannot be 'sustained' for the next 100 years relates to the Emersonian dictum you quoted. For those unfamiliar with one of the more 'radical' activists, let me enumerate Barry Commoner's three ecological rules: (1) Everything is related to everything else; (2) Everything must go somewhere; (3) There are no free lunches. So we hope that Emerson's aims for education do prevail."

John continues:

"To shift to Nixon: The dictum didn't quite hold up with his bright young men. Incidentally, was it in the Tom Swift or the Rover Boys series that the bad guy was called Noddy Nixon? And the books of our youth always added 'and his cronies,' so we'd know who wore the black hats. The heroes always had 'friends,' not cronies. Possibly Pres. Nixon, making his way in the tough old world, never had a chance to read such frivolous stuff"."

Our impression is that John has a mental gear slippage on Noddy Nixon. The bad guy in the Tom Swift series was Andy Folger. The name of the schoolmate who gave the Rover Boys a hard time at Putnam Hall is on the tip of our tongue, and we're ready to swear it wasn't Noddy. Josiah Crabtree, the drummed-out teacher, also gave them a lot of trouble, and continued to do so in after years - e.g. At Brill College, In the Air, In New York - along with Jerry Koswell and his cronies, Bart Larkspur and Dudd Flackley, although eventually Dudd did turn over a new leaf. Our own favorite crony is the one Corey Ford had in his Rollo Boys series. We forget the head bad guy's name, but we've always remembered "Ben Garter, his chief supporter."

Happy New Year!

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