Honorary Degrees

Earl Henry Blaik

... You turned down many offers to become a head coach until 1934 when Ernest Martin Hopkins persuaded you to come to Hanover.

In just one year you rekindled the spirit of Dartmouth football. You coached some of the best teams ever to play for the College, breaking the Yale "jinx" and running a string of 22 games without a loss. There were also many colorful incidents, including the fan who lined up as a "twelfth man" for Dartmouth and the game Cornell won on a fifth down - and conceded the next day.

You were a great tactician and innovator. But, more importantly, you instilled a spirit of complete dedication in your players, so that their only fear was the fear of letting you down. You believed the game belonged to the players. You felt the job of the coach was that of a teacher enabling each player to achieve his best. . . .

With the coming of war you felt it your patriotic duty to accept a call to coach Army. Your record in that position is a legend.

Your most important achievement, however, is not your record of wins, but your influence on the lives of men. Whether it was the hundreds of players who went on to play major roles in our nation, your many assistants - including Vince Lombardi - who went on to greatness, or the Presidents of the United States who considered it a privilege to have you as a friend, your unquestioned integrity and dedication served as an inspiration. . . .

Melvyn Douglas

... You had your Broadway debut in 1928 and your first great success was in Tonight or Never. This play not only brought you a Hollywood contract, but you also married the play's beautiful leading lady. That marriage seems to have been impetuously cast, but it has had a run of 46 years to rave reviews.

The next decade found you starring in some two-score films, playing opposite all the great movie actresses of the day. These movies included such classics as Ninotchka, with Greta Garbo; but you were intensely unhappy about being forced to grind out movies in large numbers, irrespective of quality. . . .

You have always had a strong social conscience and have been active in trying to improve the lot of your fellow man. This would lead to scurrilous attacks on you during the war when you headed the Arts Division of the Office of Civilian Defense. By then a world-famous star, you ended up enlisting in the Army as a private.

After the war, free to choose your own roles, you engaged in a second career of greater depth. Thus you won acting's triple crown: the Oscar for Hud, the Tony for The Best Man, and the Emmy for Do Not Go Gently. ... To this must be added your unforgettable portrayal of Clarence Darrow in Inherit the Wind.

Dartmouth College is pleased to honor a truly remarkable actor, a man of conscience, a neighbor and frequent visitor to our campus. . . .

Ray A. Kroc

Entrepreneur extraordinary, you are a living testimonial that in America anything is possible.

After a disastrous experience in the Florida land boom, you embarked upon your first successful career: 18 years as a salesman of paper cups. It was during these years that you formulated your philosophy of quality, service, and cleanliness, and of always providing your customers the best possible value. Next you struck out on your own to market a new electric device that could mix five milkshakes at the same time. You might thus have lived your life as a moderately successful businessman, except for your insatiable curiosity.

One day you set out to investigate why one small California restaurant was using eight of your Multimixers. As a result, at age 52 you abandoned a safe job to set out on the riskiest venture of your life. . . .

You have always been a dreamer, but the reality of 4,000 McDonald's dispensing billions of hamburgers and French fries all over the world has exceeded even your wildest dreams. You have created a uniquely American institution. Today a student choosing a college will look for three essential ingredients: an outstanding faculty, a good library, and a McDonald's nearby.

You have captivated two generations of Tuck School students with the story of your achievements, and we all feel that "you deserve a break today. ..."

Lowell Thomas

... Your life has been filled with adventure. You have witnessed the greatest events of the century, the natural and manmade wonders of the world, and you have shared them with the rest of us.

... President Wilson asked you as a young man to chronicle the First World War. You covered the campaign in Europe and the Middle East, were first to enter Germany after the war, and were the person to introduce Lawrence of Arabia to the world. Your "shows," combining voice and motion pictures, became famous on three continents. During World War II you traveled to every major battlefield; most memorable of your newscasts was your description from a P-51 of Berlin in flames.

You introduced us to little known places and people, whether it was a then-unknown Alaska, or India, or cannibals, or Tibet's forbidden city. And, for 46 years, millions eagerly waited to hear your famous voice bring them the evening news. This year, at the age of 85, you received the Medal of Freedom.

You passionately love skiing, celebrating your 50th birthday by skiing down the headwall of Tuckerman's Ravine. Fortunately, you passed this love on to your family, since both your son and your granddaughter have captained Dartmouth ski teams!

... We wish to thank you for all the excitement you have brought into our lives and to say, "So long until tomorrow."

David Brion Davis '50

... Currently the Farnam Professor of History at Yale. . . . Your prodigious scholarly output is perhaps partially explained by the fact that both of your parents were writers. You are engaged in a monumental task, tracing the history of slavery in Western Civilization. The first volume, which appeared in 1966, and for which you won the Pulitzer Prize, demonstrated that roots of American slavery go back to the civilizations of Greece, Rome, and the early Christian period. It traces brilliantly the intellectual conflict between morality and expediency.

The second volume, published in 1975, analyzes the rise of the abolitionist movement in the first half-century of our nation. This second volume seems to have won you every possible prize that the first volume may have failed to win.

Thirty years ago, in your application to Dartmouth, you wrote: "In order that our form of life and government be perpetuated, it is imperative that the people be given a comprehensive view of the past. I therefore believe that I can best pay my debt to society by studying and later teaching history." No alumnus of the College has more fully lived up to a promise made upon entrance. . . .

William Eugene Buchanan '24

. . . After business school, you returned to your home to enter the employ of the Appleton Wire Works. Twelve years later you became president of the corporation. Eventually this corporation merged into Albany International, of which you served as chairman of the board. Indeed, you would serve on the boards of some 20 corporations, exerting a strong positive influence no matter where your voice was heard. Your many friends and admirers in the corporate world joined together recently to honor you by en- dowing a chair in your name at Dartmouth. . . .

You have been equally generous with your services in support of higher education and civic causes. . . . For your alma mater you served on the Alumni Council, as an Alumni Trustee and Charter Trustee, and as chairman of the National Executive Committee of the Third Century Fund. Not least among your contributions to the College is the fact that all four of your children are members of the Dartmouth Family.

Whether in business or education, all those whose lives were touched by your gentle kindness and your sound advice feel deeply indebted to you. . . .

Helen Gahagan Douglas

. . . Your desire for a stage career led to stardom remarkably quickly. You had successful tours as an opera singer in both Europe and the United States. You played the title role in the movie She, perhaps the most imitated movie of all time. By the late thirties you seemed to have reached fulfillment, combining renown as an actress and singer with a very happy family life.

But two events set a new course for your life. You witnessed at first hand the plight of migrant workers during the Depression, and during a European tour you were horrified by the rise of Naziism. You decided that you had to enter the political arena in order to help the underprivileged and fight against the Nazi threat. You became an active politician at both the national and precinct level, and in 1944 you were elected to Congress to represent a poverty-stricken district in Los Angeles.

During the next six years in the House of Representatives you wrote a remarkable record on both domestic and international legislation. And you have a permanent monument in the McMahon-Douglas bill, which turned over atomic energy to civilian control.

In 1959, you successfully challenged for the nomination for the Senate, but were defeated by a Republican Congressman. It was an election that will not be forgotten, since it used a technique that would later be known as "dirty tricks." Had you won that election, our nation would have been spared the agony of Watergate.

Since that time . . . you . . . have lectured on hundreds of college campuses. Our own students were fortunate to hear your lectures, based on your invariable text - the United States Constitution. We are proud to honor you for your services to our country. . . .

Opposite (front row, from left): Melvyn Douglas, Helen GahaganDouglas, President Kemeny, and William Buchanan. (Backrow): David Brion Davis, Lowell Thomas, Ray Kroc, Red Blaik.