1929

Like a local newspaper, this column needs lots of names so we won't be tempted to write editorials. The southwest Florida March meeting found only two '29 couples, Rol and Reba Reading and the Ripleys. Herb and Peggy Fish were happily at work with their new real estate licenses in Ft. Myers and looked great. John Quebman was back up at Woods Hole starting his golf season with a hole, in one.

We asked Harris Huston for thoughts on the FBI. Harris has been out for years hut has kept close contact. He believes that "J. Edgar Hoover was probably the greatest public servant the country had in this century...long on ability, judgment, firmness, and much less long on compassion, even with his employees. His staunchest admirers agree he stayed in office too long. His enemies were not satisfied with his death. Their goal was to destroy his reputation and ruin the Bureau.... In the field of internal security they have been successful... add that our foreign intelligence has been decimated, and we are in an almost hopeless condition. Adhering to Marquis of Queensbury rules in a ghetto alley may seem an overdrawn analogy, but it isn't." In early World War II, when F.D.R. was calling Stalin "Uncle Joe," Hoover had three men in Boston watching Russia to one on Germany.

Duke Barto sent a reminder of 29's early eminence, listing eight alumni club secretaries in 1934: Bill Andres, Boston; Barto, ashington; Ted Brownlee, Maine; Jim Hodge, Horthern New York; Jim Latham, Baltimore; George Scott, Central Pennsylvania; Gus Wiedenmayer, Newark; and Greg Wright, Cincinnati. Duke added that we're not alone in making our widows welcome in class affairs, as Lucy Cogswell, widow of John Cogswell '31, has been elected their class treasurer.

We asked Jim Loeb, co-founder of Americans for Democratic Action, what he thinks would be best for the country. Jim starts, "Some of my best friends are Republicans." He's a Kennedy man, but back in February saw his chances as slim. Jim's comments on Carter, Iran, and "fantastic profits of oil companies" invite some lively correspondence with some of us rednecks.

Jim lives in Norwich, carrying out his long ambition to retire to the College. He sits in on classes, attends lectures, concerts, and sporting events. Quote: "This is the perfect life, especially since Anna loves it, too. Anna was for 30 years fund-raiser for the NAACP legal defense fund, and her first boss was a fellow named Thurgood Marshall." They are both devoted to the cause of civil rights and have friends among the black students and faculty. Jim says, "The real problem of the black students ... for which there is no solution ... is that there is no black community in Hanover or in the area outside of the College itself."

What cruel folly to waste our powers on false distinctions between black and white or Indian.

It's really not a mortal sin To note the color of one's skin, Nor should I curse the Master Plan That left me so I cannot tan. In fact, it's probably all right That some of my best friends are white!

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