Letters to the Editor

Loyalty and the Dream

TO THE EDITOR:

I recently received, from the Head Agent of my class, a form letter the odor of which I found more than faintly disagreeable and the im- plications of which I believe deserve airing in these pages.

After praising my record of support ("Dear Loyal Classmate: You are one of less than 250 men in our entire class who have given something to the Alumni Fund in each of the last five years"), the letter went on to identify, by name, a delinquent (and therefore, of course, presumptively disloyal) classmate who has given nothing during the past five years. A coded card, fresh from the computer, was conveniently provided ("your contact is enclosed"), and I was asked ("as a special favor") to "personally contact" this man and "try to get him to give something." My task was eased ("I have taken geography into account"), and I was urged to "talk to him on the phone, invite him to lunch, or have him over to your house" - above all, "find out what is behind his lack of interest these past five years."

The text of my reply follows:

"Dear Head Agent:

"Although I trust that the feeling of 'near desperation' expressed in your letter of yesterday is sincere and that your motives are pure, and although I recognize that desperate events may require desperate remedies, I nonetheless cannot in good conscience do the 'special favor' you ask. In effect, what you want me to do is to put the squeeze on a classmate (of whose name and face, incidentally, I have absolutely no recollection) who has been judged to be delinquent and therefore a disloyal son of Dartmouth because of his continued non-support of the Alumni Fund. This smacks of ungraciousness and incivility, certainly, with perhaps even a faint whiff of the unethical and potentially subversive pressure tactics employed by the likes of Haldeman, Ehrlichman, and Colson, tactics roundly and rightly deplored by the liberal guardians of our social and civic morality. I don't mean the recalcitrant classmate's delinquency: I mean your request that I lean on him. I don't know what his motives are, and I believe it is improper for me to seek to know. Certainly there are those alumni who are congenital cynics and nay-sayers, and perhaps Dartmouth has a larger share of these than it is comfortable for us to admit, which of course would cast grave doubts on the legitimacy of the vaunted Dartmouth Spirit that has seemed to sustain the College so well at least up until the Kemeny era. On the other hand, perhaps this instance of nonsupport - and the non-support of an increasing number of alumni in recent years - reflects some honest conviction, whatever that conviction may be based upon. I know that my own angry letter and token one-dollar contribution during the year of Armageddon in Hanover (1970) were based on such conviction, and I respect the right of any other alumnus to make up his mind without undue pressure.

"I am taking the liberty of sending a copy of this letter to my 'contact,' along with the liţtle computer card that shows how derelict he has been. Perhaps when he hears, even so indirectly. from a classmate who is not one of the positive thinkers and professional money-raisers, he just might (mirabile!) surprise you and kick in a few bucks."

Perhaps the survival of Dartmouth College is at issue, but certain moral and ethical questions arise which ought not to be swept aside under the guise of something like "national security or "the good of the Republic" (read "College"). These involve (l) the ugliness of unseen pressure tactics, (2) the dangers of the unexamined loyalty syndrome, which can im- perfectly well-intentioned people to resort to such things as (3) black lists (let's face it: Mr. X is on a black list, along with the other 200 more men from my class alone who did not contribute) and (4) the invasion of privacy in a less tangible but very real sense - all of which things strike at the ideals which justify the very existence of an institution like Dartmouth

I urge that you print this letter, along with any replies that the officials of the Alumni Fund might want to provide - not so that I can see my name in print, but because the issue deserves free and open debate, and because thousands of Dartmouth alumni deserve to know the tactics used to extract "loyalty" from them, a loyalty they might more charitably bestow if these tactics were less unlovely.

Let me add just one final note. As a faculty member at a small, independent, liberal arts college located in the North Country, I believe I understand reasonably well the gravity of the financial crisis Dartmouth now faces. It is cruelly ironic that certain impersonal and indifferent forces - the investment slump, runaway inflation, spiralling energy costs - have conspired to frustrate the best-laid plans of many years. But these "economic realities" should not be allowed to obscure, even in the worst of times, the moral and ethical questions - involving civility, decency, propriety, and loyalty - which I have attempted to raise. In President Kemeny's own words to the Alumni Council [quoted in the February 1974 Bulletin]. "Why continue to support Dartmouth if it is not the dream you have been supporting all your lives?"

For many alumni the dream has been sullied There are those, of course, who resist any tampering with the contours of the dream, and for them the changes of recent years - coeduca- tion, year-round operation, the abandonments the Indian symbol - have been ipso facto bad things. Others, no matter where they stand on these issues, feel a vaguely disquieting malaise - deeper sense of some fundamental disparity between the Dartmouth ideal - the Dartmouth Spirit - and the reality.

Canton, N. Y.

Emerson B. Houck. Head Agent for the Class1956, replies: I am sorry that Bob Browne has placed the construction on my request which he has because my intention was as far removed possible from that which, undoubtedly in all honesty and good faith, he has perceived it to be My purpose was simply to develop as Personalized an approach as possible with all our classmates who have evidenced a lack of inters in Dartmouth, at least insofar as Alumni Fund participation is concerned. Since this is a pretty large group in our class, it required an equally large group of men to contact them. I asked these men to do the following:

"... Please talk to (your contact) on the phone, invite him to lunch, or have him over to your house. Something anything, personal and direct may help. Try, of course, to get him to give something, however small, to Dartmouth. But, perhaps even more important,try to find out what is behind hislack of interest these past five yearsStrive to reopen some channel of communicationwith him. Let me know if he has a particular gripe. Maybe I can put him in touch with someone who can resolve whatever the problem may be. (Emphasis added.)

By phrasing my request in this way I thought it would be clear that I am interested in these non-contributors as individuals and anxious to obtain their views on the College so that they may feel a part of the total Dartmouth community. That one can be a welcome member of that community whether or not he chooses to contribute to the Alumni Fund is self-evident to me. However, a non-contributor probably has a good reason for his position as, hopefully, do all of us who choose to give something to whatever worthy cause commands our interest and concern. Dialogue between the two groups seemed to me to be most healthy and desirable. To date it has proven to be so. Many men in our class have specifically stated to me and to others that they have appreciated the personal contact. Several have written excellent letters raising justified points of difference with College policy Such interchange is more than desirable - we thrive on it. Silence, alienation, lack of comunication are what we should fear.

I welcome Bob Browne's invitation to "free and open debate" as much as I grieve his interpretation of my request and deplore the con- clusions he draws from it. Let me categorically state that there is no blacklist - non- contributors are merely men who did not give no more, no less - and there is no threat or punishment implied. (Frankly, I can't imagine what these could be.) There are no pressure tactics at work here either. I asked a group of men to do me a favor - they were quite free to reject my request on any ground whatsoever. Those who accepted the job in turn asked one other man if he would like to discuss Dartmouth They, in turn, could as easily say no as yes, and in fact, large numbers have given each answer

In closing I would like to re-emphasize our belief that everyone's ideas matter to us and we are anxious to hear from everyone. In this way we can reduce alienation to a minimum and crease idea exchange to a maximum. In the process we hope to share our belief that Dartmouth is an institution of great value to our society, that it is among the best (if not the best) at what it is trying to do, that what it is trying to do is worthwhile, and that all of us who ever were a part of that enterprise are always welcome in it in whatever way we choose.

The Faculty

TO THE EDITOR:

On February 2nd the various alumni clubs in the New Jersey area sponsored an Alumni Seminar. The faculty from Hanover were Alan Gaylord and Dave Gregory.

This was an outstanding experience for me personally and I am writing to recommend this to any alumni in other parts of the country" who are offered the opportunity to participate.

If more of us were aware of the quality of instruction in Hanover, as evidenced by men like Gaylord and Gregory, the Alumni Fund won probably be even more successful.

Westfield, N.J.

Franklin McDuffee

TO THE EDITOR

I would not seek to denigrate Richard Hovey's "mantle as poet laureate of the Dartmouth experience." (See "Poet of Place", Dartmouth Alumni Magazine, issue of December 1973. p. 24.) On the contrary, I yield to no one in admiration of his sensitive skill in evoking the spirit and traditions of the old College (as in "Men of Dartmouth" and "Eleazar Wheelock") and the beauty and feeling of the North Country (as in "Hanover Winter Song" and the lesser known "Comrades....")

Yet it is astonishing to find "Dartmouth Undying" attributed to him by the author of the brief article. His fame needs no such erroneous enhancement. On the other hand, a grave injustice is done to the memory of my classmate and good friend. Franklin McDuffee, whose omission from the list of outstanding Dartmouth poets is as difficult to understand as is R. B. G.'s carelessness in making that attribution.

Franklin McDuffee '21, was an outstanding scholar as an undergraduate - a junior-year Phi Beta Kappa, who was graduated summacum laude during a time when degrees with distinction were really meaningful. As winner of the Campbell Fellowship he went On to graduate study at Oxford where, with his poem "Michelangelo", he became the first Amerocan ever to win the famous Newdigate English verse, which was first awarded in 1806 and has been won by a number of distinguisbed literary figures, including Oscar Thereafter he became a respected and useful member of the English Department at Dartmouth, where he remained until his early

Certainly Hovey at his finest no better tured the feeling of the old Dartmouth McDuffee in "Dartmouth Undying" which is further graced by the magnificently appropriate musical setting provided by Homer Whitford '07, Dartmouth Assistant Professor of Music the time, and the director who first brought national acclaim for choral excellence to the Dartmouth Glee Club.

To have avoided this error no very rigorous research would have been required. The original manuscript of "Dartmouth Undying' in McDuffee's handwriting is a prized possession of the Baker Library. Casual examination of the table of contents of Hovey's Dartmouth Lyrics published by the College in 1938, would have disclosed the absence of "Dartmouth Undying." Reference to a Dartmouth song book should have sufficed.

Madison, Conn.

Confederate Green

TO THE EDITOR:

From reading President Kemeny's remarks in the last Bulletin, it appears that the crunch at Dartmouth is not the crunch of feet on snow, and I should make the following proposal that Dartmouth move its campus to Alabama for seasonable reasons:

1. The crew could work out all year instead of driving 1,300 miles to and fro during spring vacation.

2. Because of the mild climate, the use heating oil would be greatly reduced, thereby saving a substantial amount in the budget.

3. Since the College is doing so well with the ABC Program, it can draw on a larger number number of indigent or underprivileged students right here without having to take them out of their surroundings.

4. The budget could be balanced because while endowment income would be in American dollars, however inflated, expenses could be paid in Confederate currency at a substanual discount.

Maybe we don't have the soft September sunsets or the snow to crunch one's feet on. but we must think of progress and leave those nostalgic reveries to our bygone alumni. Moving the campus to Alabama will not change Dartmouth from the way the alumni remember it. Y'all come!

Montgomery, Ala.

Gripsholm Mystery Solved

TO THE EDITOR:

On page 29 of the January issue of the Alumni Magazine appeared a picture of' 14 and other alumni on the Gripsholm. As I was one of those in the photo, I can shed some light on those not named....

I appreciated seeing the photo. It brought back old memories.

Washington, D.C.

(Mr. Warner is the "unidentified passenger standing at far left in the photograph reproduced in the January and March issues. Ed.)