The Undergraduate Chair

Lettered T-shirts have become very popular on campus during the past few years. All the fraternities have them, and so do some of the dorms.

"What's that one say, Melanie?"

"The Dartmouth ... there is nothing so powerful as the truth ... Daniel Webster."

"The D? What do those guys know about the truth?"

"How can you even read it to find out if they're lying?"

Unfortunately, during the past few years, these were not atypical comments about America's Oldest College Newspaper, The Dartmouth.

The problem of the paper's campus credibility, however, is one that is now receding with some speed. Several years ago The Dartmouth, like other activist college newspapers, was taking concerned positions on the war, race and poverty, the draft, and the grape boycott. And, at that point, those stands were not greatly out of line with student opinion.

During the last two years, though, the student body seems to have become less outwardly socially concerned. Because of this, the editors of the newspaper, still trying to put forth their views on crucial issues facing the nation, received at best yawns, and at worst challenges to their journalistic credibility.

New directorates have brought different outlooks to the editorial page, and students recently seem to have accepted the paper's presenting its views on important matters. The issues the paper is now tackling are likewise relating to and impressing the campus.

The problem of production though has not been completely solved.

The paper now is the only Ivy League newspaper that is still letterpress; the rest are all photo-offset. Because it uses hot lead, it is easy for it to own all phases of its production, which it does, including its own presses. But, as of September, TheDartmouth will change to offset. The move was anticipated, but its immediacy was not and the costs, versus the cash on hand. Promise to be staggering.

Business Manager and Chairman of the Paper's Board of Proprietors Joseph Genova '75 explained the conditions which have forced this sudden conversion.

"The whole newspaper industry has been switching to offset for some time. As a result, few new letterpress operators are being trained; there are very few at all in the Upper Valley area.

"Moreover, the machines we own are very old, and the companies that have supplied us with spare parts up until now are either switching to offset operations themselves or going out of business. Parts are hard to get, the machines break down, so the paper has come out late in the day, and with a great many typographical errors.

"Offset," continued Genova, "does make for a cleaner, faster and better product for newspaper jobs."

To add to the immediacy of the paper's problems, the lease on the space in which the presses and linotype machines are kept expired at the end of May.

"We have to move that stuff," said Genova in early May. "To get a crane to haul it out would cost us about $2500 ... even then I'm not sure what we could do with it." Genova added that the paper will have trouble getting the money for the moving job.

At this; point, the corporation is negotiating for a College loan to enable offset to become a reality. Should the loan be approved, even at lower than market interest rates, directorates until 1980 will be saddled with the repayment and interest cost of the present conversion to photo-offset production.

Granted the loan comes through, Genova said, "If we make it through the first two years, we will be on our way to a high quality newspaper and a profit-making corporation.

"Next year though is going to be very rough financially."

Drew Newman, who has been filling infor Bruce Kimball '73 as UndergraduateEditor for the past few months, is Executive Editor of The Dartmouth and assuch is one of the students wrestling withthe problems of converting to offset.