1938
As I'm sure that most of you know, our college is in serious financial trouble. First word of it was received here from a Mt. Washington television station news broadcast, followed by a clipping from a Manchester, N.H., newspaper, and then one from The New York Timet (The newscaster mispronounced Dartmouth president's name to rhyme with "How many?" rather than the constellation Gemini, but the message was clear.)
The problem - or a major facet of the problem - is, of course, sky-rocketing fuel oil costs. The fact that other Ivy League colleges and in fact all private colleges and universities, especially those here in the Northeast, are suffering from similarly straitened circumstances is pretty cold comfort - more cole and less comfort.
But be all that as it may, it seems to me that a real opportunity to help our college is presented. The 1974 Alumni Fund is the vehicle. This is a reunion year for us; special reunion-year giving is earnestly encouraged; and Dartmouth College, our college, needs our financial help, if not desperately, certainly critically. Let us all show by our gifts to this year's Fund that we truly do care for Dartmouth and her future.
Money, then, is the immediate and shortrange problem, and all of us can help. For the long-term (and one way or another I believe that the fuel crisis or the energy crisis in one form or another is not going to go away) is the following too far-out or whimsical a suggestion?:
Several years ago Dartmouth went from three-term (or two-semester), nine-month operation to year-round operation for what then seemed good and sufficient economic and financial reasons. Conditions have now radical changed, and those reasons appear no longer to apply. How about going back to the nine-month-a-year operation, closing the College down, not for the summer as it used to be, but for the winter months, when fuel consumption is at its highest?
If Dartmouth did that, we'd lose Carival, and we'd lose winter sports, and that would be very disappointing; but maybe the sport isn't worth the candle ... or rather the loss of the sport might be made worth it by the savings of candle-power. We'd lose our hockey season too, and hockey seasons like our current one would be a shame to lose. As this is written we're very near the top in the ECAC standings. In any case, by the time of our reunion, June 10-12 fuel - heating anyway - will be far less of a problem. As effectively urged by PaceSetter Editor Dan Marshall and Auctioneer Whity Mays, send something solid, or a saleable service, to be sold at 38's auction, for benefit of the College; and then plan to be the to bid for some one else's bounty.
For a full-page ad characterized by what I consider good writing and sound argumentation I commend page 4 of the January Alumni Magazine to your attentions. As stated therein, Green Key's invitation to all alumni to make a suggestion regarding a Dartmouth symbol affords us all our opportunity to reestablish our Indian symbol. Write Green Key. Make your sentiments known.
The month's mail has included a good and most appreciated letter from John Adams. John is still with his family business, manufacturing cutting dies for leather, paper, cloth, and rubber, in Worcester, Mass. He reports having seen five Dartmouth games last fall, including UNH and Yale, that I attended, and I'm only sorry we didn't meet. Thirty-five years is undeniably a long time, and, inevitably, we've changed. As John suggests, he's not sure he'd have recognized me, and vice versa. What I think we, except for the dedicatedly anti-social among us, should do is to try to plan pre- and/or post-game class get-togethers, where we can identify each other, for better or worse, as at the Tanises in Hanover and the Reeves in Quechee, and the pre-Harvard-game gathering.
John says he ran into Jim Sutcliffe, a Massachusetts bank examiner, in Worcester, and used occasionally to see Carl Sharpe before he moved from Shrewsbury, Mass., to Maine, as noted last month, and Head Agent Bob Hallock. He further notes as follows, "I continue to play squash two or three times weekly all year round. My principal opponent is Al McIntyre, #1 player of the class of '37. I have never played on the Hanover courts and long to play there. Under the circumstances I will bring my squash gear to our reunion and will accept all challenges from any one in the reunion classes of '38, '39, and '40." Action: Nelson, Reeve, Barrett, Walkley, and/or Mays, with the last-named exchanging his auctioneer's hammer for a racquet.
It is with much sadness that we have to report the death of another classmate, Johnny Duguid, on January 1. His obituary appears elsewhere in this issue.
His passing was mentioned in a previous issue The Pace Setter, and it goes without saying that the sympathy of our class is also expressed here to Bob Osterhout's widow Charlotte, and his sons and daughter.
Secretary, Box 187, Damariscotta, Me. 04543
Treasurer, 1335 Woodside Dr., McLean, Va. 22101
