Further Mention

"It is one of the paradoxes of history that the American press has come under sustained attack at a time when its performance in carrying information to the public surpasses that of any period and its effective function is perhaps more essential to the preservation of American democracy than ever before." So writes Robert W. Mitchell '32, a Vermont newspaperman, in Two Perspectives on - Politics and the Press, published by The American Institute for Political Communication, Washington, D.C., in a brochure of 56 pages. His essay is entitled "The Press and Politics" and follows "Politics and the Press" by Richard D. Cudahy, prominent in Wisconsin political and public service. Mr. Mitchell discusses big business in the newspaper field (reactionary), the role of television (more effective than newspapers), the flow of national news in The New York Times and The Washington Post (admired and resented), the newspaper as watchdog of the public interest (praiseworthy), the meaning and implication of "bias" (less partisan today), the Broup ownership trend and technological innovation (revolutionizing production), tensions between press and government (newsmen should be protected, not jailed), and the newspapers vicious enemies of office holders and office seekers (a dangerous alibi for incompetence)

Here is a book to give upsmanship to Dartmouth men so unfamiliar with famous graduates as to rely too heavily on Daniel Webster and no one else when queried about Dartmouth men who figured prominently in American life. Ask any Ivy League graduate making his mark in business or foreign policy who John Barrett was and what he did. Then sit back and enjoy his baffled look. You may inform him that, a career diplomat and commercial publicist, Class of 1889, he was so highly regarded that he was given the honorary degree of LL.D. by the National University of Bogota Tulane University, Panama University, and the University of Southern California. Though he had a strong Vermont flavor (born in Grafton 1866, died in Bellows Falls 1938), he had a strong international flavor as well. From 1894 to 1898 he was United States Minister to Siam; Argentina 1903-4 and Colombia 1905-6; and he helped to found the Pan American Union which he served as the First Director General 1907- 1920. Thus, John Barrett played a major role in American business and foreign policy during the early 20th century.

Though historians, Walter Millis, Charles S. Campbell, Walter LeFeber, Charles P. Hays, Thomas McCormick, and Lloyd C. Gardner, have praised Barrett and his accomplishments, no good book has reached library shelves about the Dartmouth graduate who played a key role in opening up the Far East and Latin America for American business.

One is now being catalogued. Written by Salvatore Prisco III, it carries the title Progressive Era Diplomat: A Study of aCommercial Expansionist 1887-1920. Twelve of its 149 pages center on bibliography. Published by The University of Alabama Press, priced at $5.75, this interpretative biography is unusual or unique in five ways. It is the first book published on Barrett. It studies the impact of the era on the diplomatic corps. Through a little-known file in the National Archives, it uncovers information about political and economic ties between specific business and political interests and the appointment of personnel to the diplomatic corps in the Progressive Era. It documents by regional newspapers and trade journals the impetus given to commercial expansion by sectional interests as well as by broad national interests. The John Barrett papers, intensively researched by Mr. Prisco, have never before been used in a published book.

For Sydney Clark '24 the word retirement takes on a peculiar meaning. He retires from one job and goes on to the next, and usually long airplane flights are involved. His latest stint is the revision of All the Best in Austria withMunich and the Bavarian Alps, 1972 MunichOlympics. It is now updated in the 1973-1974 Revised Edition, 344 pages, illustrated, published by Dodd, Mead & Company, $9.95. The chief change is Chapter 13, entitled previously "Munich and Its '72 Olympics," and now "Munich, a City of Today and Tomorrow. It points out that the Olympic Games focussing the attention of all the world on Munich were watched by 800 million TV viewers. Mr. Clark registers his sense of double legacy, one of great civic achievement and one of frustration and horror. Who are we Americans, he asks rhetorically to condemn Munich's handling of the "dastardly assassinations of the Israeli athletes, we who have seen two Kennedys assassinated, and Martin Luther King, and the attempted assassination of the Governor of Alabama? The 1972 edition concentrates on facts and figures about present and future conduction for athletic and tourist use; the 1973-4, on the conversions of buildings for post-game use. On the panoramic platform above the Olympic Restaurant, Mr. Clark lingered over his dinner for four full revolutions at a 36-n ute pace so entranced was he with the view of two Olympic Villages with buildings to house 10,000 men 2.000 women, and hundreds of personnel and the numerous stadia and sports halls. The Platform was high up, 560 feet plus, and Mr. Clark felt quite Olympian - and philosophic. Though Munich is "a personality," it is no longer primarily a 19th-century city. The 20th century has thrust an insistent knee in the door, and the 21st century is looking over its shoulder. Nonetheless Munich's spaciousness and versatility still permit the Gemütlichkeit, culture, beauty, and grace of the old city to exist alongside the throbbing new urban expansion and intensity.