1932
Just as this copy is about to go to Hanover, a bulletin comes from there informing that within the past three weeks '32 has slipped precipitously from the lead position to fourth in its Green Derby ranking (the respective combined percent of participation and percent of objective in the Alumni Fund of the classes 1931 through 1937). To date (May 7) 134 of us have given $ 18,568 - 42 contributors fewer and $39,373 less than last year at the same time. One aspect of contributing to the Fund, it seems to us, does not get the attention it should. As undergraduates the tuition fees we paid the College covered about half what our tuition cost the College, with the Alumni Fund of that time making up the annual deficits. If memory serves as to what the fees then were, each of us would have to come up with $3,200, ignoring interest, just to put us even. Some among us have given that much - some much more - back to Dartmouth over the years. Most of us have not. If your '73 Fund gift is not yet in as you read this, we suggest a post-haste mailing while you think of it
We are only a few days back from Hanover, where you were represented at the annual class officers' gathering by Mark Short, Art Allen, and this correspondent. And where Mark distinguished us all by being named Class Newsletter Editor of the Year. You will, we believe, find the citation that accompanied that well-earned honor elsewhere in this issue.
The weekend, while not great weatherwise (it was snowing on top of Smart's Mountain Saturday afternoon) was as always pleasant and stimulating. If the series of panel programs made it clear that all things on the Hanover Plain are not as well ordered as we might wish - there is a degree of ungentlemanliness on the part of male undergraduates toward coeds; such minority groups as coeds, blacks, and native Americans find cause to remain unhappily aware of their minority status; the American educational system continues to send up students to the College who are ill-prepared to work creatively with the facts they are so good at garnering; and one might wonder whether the falling off in student activism and the vaunted return to campus values of the 1950's and early 1960's, while perhaps more comfortable for the alumni, is necessarily all that great for the College - but nevertheless there was a pervading sense of salutary goals to be striven for.
It seems like only a few months ago - the December issue to be precise - that this column was reporting the election of leader Tom Curtis to the chairmanship of the Board of Directors of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, a body created by Congress to oversee public television, and quoting Tom's remark that contrary to the opinions of many, public broadcasting was not "stuck on a plateau - I suspect it is rather on a launching pad." In mid-April Tom resigned from the Board. A week later he told a New YorkTimes reporter that persons in the White House had "tampered" with the board, making calls to members in a successful effort to "shoot down" the compromise plan designed to adjust relations between the Corporation and the country's 233 public television stations. "This board," Tom told the Times, "has been under very severe attack in the news media for the past five months, with people saying it was involved in a 'Nixon takeover,' and I have defended it vigorously - and I underscore vigorously. I don't believe I could defend the Board with that kind of vigor any more. When I felt I could no longer do that, I felt I better resign."
From your notes to Ev Hokanson: John Merrill retired from General Electric on January 2 - he had worked at the Fitchburg, Mass., plant in steam turbine engineering for 30 years - and became a grandfather for the first time on the same day. Dr. Fritz Browning moved from New Hampshire to Madeira, Fla., "after 2½ years of bad luck with health and an ever increasing rage against snow, sleet, ice, etc." He is working in admissions at the Bay Pines Veterans Administration Hospital and enjoying it, "but it is nauseating to see the waste of money on drunks, derelicts, and lazy people. The word from headquarters is to show compassion. If only the politicians would use a little honesty and really work for the country and not self gain." And from Granny Browning: "Now that Dartmouth is finally coeducational, I hope that any existing feelings of mutual responsibility for each other that existed between the Dartmouth administration, faculty, student body, and alumni prior to coeducation will become more significant."
Comes a postcard from Carl Ward, who had "spent a nice evening with Gordon Mackenzie and wife at the time of our Association annual meeting. Just prior to that Dr. Ralph Elias showed up at one of our monthly luncheons in San Francisco. He looks healthy and well tanned and is retired."
Don A. Simpson writes from Kenmore, N.Y., where he and Grace have now been living for a year M "deferred salary (euphemism for pension)". They were going to the Orient in April. Jim North writes: "I have 'almost retired' - at least to the extent of not having to go outdoors to go to my office! This freeing up of one's time has some hazards and can be abused - i.e., Peg and I went to England last September, stayed in Europe a while, went on around in time to get to California for Thanksgiving, and then spent the winter in Mexico. We got home a couple of weeks ago, only to find that there hadn't been a winter we thought we had gotten away from!"
We extend the sympathy of the Class to Jim Wakelin, whose wife Margaret died in Washington on April 8 after suffering a heart at-tack.
"The year have been kind to me," Dick Manville writes, citing his son's recent marriage, his daughter's graduation from college, and his own retirement from government service. At the same time he is distressed by "many things here and abroad which certainly represent change, but not progress as I see it. And I must confess I have been disenchanted by many recent developments at Dartmouth. I remain a biologist at heart but, of late, my thoughts have turned more and more to theological and metaphysical matters. Despite the failing of so many of our old traditions, I still extend a hearty Wah Hoo Wah to Cal Geary for his recent cogent missive. In response, rather than a biblical quotation, I would offer the words penned in 1954 by Dag Hammarskjold:
'Give me a pure heart - that I may see Thee, a humble heart - that I may hear Thee. A heart of love - that I may serve Thee, A heart of faith - that I may abide in Thee.' " Have a good summer.
Secretary, Orchard Hill Road Westport, Conn. 06880
Class Agent, 919 Monroe St., Evanston, Ill. 60202
