Letters to the Editor

Magna Carta

TO THE EDITOR:

All well and good to draw parallels between John I of England and Richard I of USA, as does Professor Charles T. Wood's "Magna Carta" (Dartmouth Alumni Magazine, November 1973, pp. 20-24). But must they perpetuate such self-serving misrepresentations as that Magna Carta was "first of our constitutional documents and foundation stone of all our liberties" (p. 20), when it was shown long ago by William Smart McKechnie that "the Magna Carta was not the foundation stone of English liberty as the men of the seventeenth century had claimed. What rights the great document did proclaim were rights to be enjoyed by the feudal group alone, and by no stretch of the imagination could they be extended to the vast bulk of the people who lived in nonfeudal status" (Sherman Kent, Writing History, 2nd ed., New York: Appleton, 1967, p. 35, my emphasis). Such distortions, though perpetrated in the interest of "relevance," only debase the currency of history and thus also its users.

Wichita Falls, Texas

(Charles Wood replies: Mr. Dickinson is right, both about McKechnie's views and their classic position in the study of Magna Carta. I had him very much in mind at the end of the article where I emphasized the charter's reactionary character. At the same time, however, interpretations more recent than McKechnie's (he published in 1915, the 700th anniversary) have taken a more sympathetic view of the barons' aims. In particular, I would cite J. C. Holt's 750th anniversary work, Magna Carta, now generally regarded as standard. I overstated the case in my opening, as Mr. Dickinson points out, but the literary license involved rests on more than Coke's seventeenth-century political passion.)

Watergate and the Press

TO THE EDITOR:

As a newspaper reporter who covered the Senate's Watergate proceedings, I was interested in the article by H. William Shure in the December issue of the Alumni Magazine.

Of course, I agree with Mr. Shure's premise - that the press played a crucial role in the Watergate investigation - and with his conclusions - that the committee would have been better off if it had worked with the press instead of having fought us and that a free press is "indispensable" to our form of society. I even agree that the press, at times, went too far, publishing grand jury proceedings and struggling to report committee testimony before public sessions in order to have, however out of perspective, exclusive stories.

But there was a thread that ran through Mr. Shure's article that disturbed me. It was the implication that the principal value of the press was to act as a mouthpiece for an official (in his case, Senator Weicker) who had an opinion or information he wanted to make public.

I think such an implication overlooks the fact that the press was often way out ahead of the official investigations, calling attention to scandals that subsequently became subjects of inquiries by the Senate committee or the special prosecutor's office. The very existence of the committee and the special prosecutor's office resulted from the public's outrage over disclosures in the press.

The scope and importance of the Watergate burglary itself and the attempted cover-up at the White House were first described in stories in a newspaper (sadly, not mine). The dirty tricks of Donald Segretti, the financial manipulations of President Nixon and his friends, the President's negligible tax payments, the enormous public expenditures at the President's private estates, the relationship between the Nixon Administration and I.T.T., the wiretaps on reporters and Government officials and the extent of the plumbers operation were all reported first in newspapers and magazines and only later found their way to grand juries and Congressional committees. The Senate committee's hearings themselves could never have had such an impact on the public had it not been for the national television coverage.

This is not meant to blow our own horns. It is merely to point out that reporters did much more significant work than accepting and publishing material fed us by officials. We were delighted when Senator Weicker or anyone else provided us with an unsolicited story. But that rarely happened. My impression is that the committee and its staff fed off the reporters' copy more substantially than the reporters benefited from those parts of the committee's inquiry that did not take place on the public stage.

Washington, D C.

Surprising Error

TO THE EDITOR:

The story on page 24 of the December issue. "Poet of Place," contains a very surprising error. I say "surprising" because it was apparently written by a member of the faculty and a Dartmouth man to boot.

Richard Hovey did not write "Dartmouth Undying." It was the work of Franklin McDuffee, Class of 1921. The music was by Homer Whitford, a member of the Music Department. In 1924 McDuffee was awarded Oxford's Newdigate Prize for English verse - the first American to win this award since 1896. Until his death in 1940, he was on the Dartmouth faculty. Others who have won the Newdigate include Matthew Arnold, Oscar Wilde, etc.

I do not know whether.Hovey wrote "Men of Dartmouth." I do know that the music was by the late Harry Wellman '07, Professor Marketing at the Tuck School.

Other Dartmouth poets you might have mentioned would include Richard Lattimore "26 and the late Marshall Schacht '27.

All of this can be verified by my classmate Dick Eberhart. Needless to say. I am delighled he was included in the story.

Greenwich, Conn.

TO THE EDITOR:

I was startled to read on page 24 of the December 1973 issue that Richard Hovey was the author of "Dartmouth Undying." That lyrical evocation of the College was, of course, written by Franklin McDuffee, a gentle, sensitive alumnus who was awarded the Newdigate Prize for poetry while he was a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford in the mid-twenties. This obvious misstatement should have been caught.

Among the Dartmouth poets listed I expected to find the name of Philip Booth "47. It might be difficult to determine whether his creative impulse was fostered by his father. Professor of English Emeritus Edmund H. Booth '18, or by his boyhood in Hanover. Undoubtedly both in equal parts. And certainly by association with Robert Frost '96 and Robert Lowell among those mentioned in the article. The award of the Lamont Poetry Selection by the American Academy of Poets in 1956 was indicative of his promise. Subsequent honors and awards from the National Institute of Arts and Letters, among others, and more recently the conferring of an honorary degree by Colby College attest his growth and current standing. I hope the omission of his name was an unintentional oversight, perhaps due to haste.

Bethesda, Md.

TO THE EDITOR:

In "Poet of Place" in the December issue, as you'll probably have heard before this, there was a slip-up requiring early correction.

Dartmouth was lucky to have Richard Hovey to write the words of its alma mater and the matchless "Winter Song." It was as lucky to have Franklin McDuffee to write the words - and Homer Whitford the music - of its nearly or equally matchless "Dartmouth Undying."

And while recalling such unmistakable Hanover-connected poets as Hovey, McDuffee, Laing, Guthrie and the others, wouldn't W.B.D. Henderson (the "New Argonautica" etc.) and a few more belong on the honor roll?

Green Farms, Conn.

(Edward Hanlon, John Ames and Charles O'Neill - and several others - are quite right in ascribing "Dartmouth Undying" to Franklin McDuffee '21. A surprising error indeed. Ed.)

The Symbol

TO THE EDITOR:

The thought is hardly original but Indians were here before we were, before the College was. Thank God we're realizing that. What better symbol of endurance - any kind - than the Indian? And for the College, struggling in its own way to endure and for its own valued purposes, what better symbol too? If we're trying to save the body, I find it hard to understand why we bury the body's symbol.

Let me give a cheer for "ethnicity" and the diversity it recommends (maybe that missing third cheer E. M. Forster and Alex Laing talk about). I gather there's research going on that eventually will cheer it too and in doing so, put out the fire under that melting pot notion. Could it be that out of this bubbling stew we've become as a country just so much rendered fat?

Which is to suggest why the argument about change and adapting to it doesn't always move me. Some things don't change, bad things but also some good things. To force change where wisdom pleads let it be is to do another kind of violence. The miracle to me is not that things change, but that things survive change. The Indian is alive somewhere, somehow. The College pine is a stump.

I'd like the Indian back - but now with dignity, with the courage of his people and the honor of their history clearly seen. Perhaps it will remind us of the dignity, the courage and the honor somewhere in ours.

New York, N. Y.

TO THE EDITOR:

After reading in the Alumni Magazine of the search for a new symbol for the College, I cannot resist the urge to comment. As an athlete, Green Key member, and perhaps "Big Greener" of the not too distant past now living in exile in Texas, I have thought about Dartmouth, college athletics, and symbols quite a lot in the two years since I left Hanover.

"Big-time" college football here in Texas and across the nation has not impressed me since graduation. The huge bands, majorettes, cannons, and mascots seem to generate only a hollow enthusiasm with their "gala" performances. Why compromise the Dartmouth spirit and philosophy toward athletics by taking on another tired symbol such as a Longhorn, Trojan, Buckeye, etc.?

We finally got rid of one stereotype which offended some people; why take the chance of offending another group with another stupid caricature? So what if you cannot draw a Big Green? I never saw a Harvard Crimson drawn either, but it is a sufficient symbol of Ivy League athletics.

Dallas, Texas

TO THE EDITOR:

I am sorry to see that some of the students want to replace BIG GREEN as the Dartmouth symbol. I have always liked it, in fact was pleased when it replaced the rather commonplace Indian, which is used so universal that it really has no quality of distinction.

BIG GREEN shows that we think something of ourselves, and rightly so, not only because of our football success; also our administrative and academic leadership.

And if you don't think something of yourself, you may be sure no one else will.

Cleveland Heights, Ohio

Hideous Blue

TO THE EDITOR:

We alumni have accepted many changes on the Dartmouth campus during the past few years, but I, as one, see absolutely no reason to change our colors.

I am referring to the hideous Yale-blue cover on the December 1973 issue of the AlumniMagazine. The Magazine is unrecognizable and you can hardly see the name. I usually display the Magazine prominently in my home, but the December 1973 issue was promptly placed in the waste basket.

Perhaps other alumni share my view.

Cutchogue, N. Y.

Hanover Inn

TO THE EDITOR:

It seems to me both unwise and unfair to overlook certain historic facts in connection with your article on page 14 of December 1973's Alumni Magazine regarding the Hanover Inn operation. The identical comment applies to Stuart Kurland's reporting on the same subject in The Dartmouth of November 12, 1973.

No one can object to changing red figures into black ones, although profits have to date not been stated as the main goal of the College Trustees in respect to the Hanover Inn. You and your readers may be interested to know that for 25 years prior to 1951 the Hanover Inn had only experienced two occasions when there was any annual operational profit. In other words, for 23 years there were fairly substantial annual operational losses. You may also be interested to know that after 1951 until the new Inn was built there were profits every year except two in which moderate losses were sutained. If you wish confirmation of these facts you may consult John Dickey or John Meek or Dick Olmsted or Paul Young, or the Trustees who served during that period.

It is no secret that the seasonal aspects at Hanover create an operational problem at the Inn. It is also a fact that the rooms, gift shop and beverage operations are always profitable. The financial villains are the losses entailed from the kitchen and food services and the arbitrary cost of heating the Inn, regardless of the kind of bookkeeping employed.

We ail wish the new management great success. However, let's be fair and recognize the historic facts and at all times bear in mind that the main function of the Hanover Inn is to remain the inviting front door of Dartmouth.

New York. N. Y.

Not Amused

TO THE EDITOR:

Having just returned from my graduate studies and only now reading past issues of the Alumni Magazine, I find myself very upset by Mr. Schmelzer's ('28) letter in the October issue. I am not sure that I understand the exact intent of his "humorous" tale, but I am quite certain that it is demeaning to the women of Dartmouth as well as women in general. Some of us occasionally tend to forget that women are fellow humans and that we are no longer young students, long past the stage of making women the brunt of cruel and undignified "jokes." If Mr. Schmelzer had some point to make with his correspondence, I do wish he would be kind enough to express his thoughts (if any) in a less cryptic manner.

Seat rook. N.H.

(Richard Schmelzer's tale had to do with a second fifth-down game with Cornell, in 1983, and a pregnant extra point kicker. Ed.)

The Trainers

TO THE EDITOR:

Unheralded in the past season's unbelievable climb to the Ivy League Championship are: Head Trainer Fred Kelly and his assistants - Bob Dagenais, Paul Edson and Irv Fountain. Except at games, they are seldom seen. These dedicated professionals spend countless hours keeping in and returning to shape our student athletes.

In addition, they are the confidants of the players and are, in no small way, responsible for the great competitive spirit these young men display.

It has been the writer's good fortune to observe Fred, particularly, in action this fall. Unlike trainers in our day, this man is a professional with a college degree, who keeps current with all the latest developments in his field - a para-medic, if you will - and even more, a specialist in the diagnosis and treatment of athletic injuries. Subject to the team doctor's approval, no one plays until Fred says so. It's a tough decision to tell a spirited athlete that he can't play, but the players all respect him and admire him.

While we in the stands are enjoying the game, he and his staff are watching the players for possible injury. We've heard criticism in the stands because the trainer does not go on the field immediately when a player obviously is hurt. Many fans don't realize that a trainer can't go on the field until he is authorized to do so by a game official.

Just as the players and Jake Crouthamel and his staff deserve our plaudits for being the champs, so do Fred and his men for their unsung role as silent partners, yet major contributors, to the team's success.

Hanover, N.H.

(Mr. Landauer was an Overseer of the Hanover Inn from 1951-1964 Ed.)