Letters

Addressing the real issues

After reading the letters in the Summer issue of the Alumni Magazine regarding South Africa, I've concluded that the battles over the symbol, coeds, Wah-Hoo-Wah chants, and losing athletic teams have served a purpose. They have spared us alumni letters on serious topics.

Two graduates point out that most of the recently liberated African countries are a mess, which is true. Indeed they seem incredibly precocious. It took European civilization many centuries to produce Hitler, while Africa came up with Idi Amin almost overnight. But we all can agree that Africa today is no picnic.

Mr. Bollenbach '49 notes that the blacks in South Africa can't run their country for they are still virtually in the Stone Age intellectually. Whites started running that country in 1652, and if the blacks are still in the Stone Age, who does he blame and how much more time shall we give whites to improve that situation? His argument is exactly the one used in the South after the Civil War: blacks couldn't vote (or do much of anything else) becaue they lacked the qualifications. If, given' so many years, you've done so little to improve the state of the downtrodden I think that perhaps you should be tossed out on your ear. And I'm not at all impressed that the whites in charge have run diamond mines and built skyscrapers and turned out pretty suburban lawns free of crabgrass. We've accomplished similar miracles here but I think the country was in better shape before the Indians sold Manhattan for $24 worth of beads. But you can't chain a man to the floor and then, years later, defend a continuation of that policy because he can't walk.

Mr. Frondorf '41 thinks that violence (which is surely coming) will get nowhere since "a mob cannot stand up against a well organized military force with a will." That "mob" is 23 million strong and has justice on its side. I suspect Mr. Frondorf will be surprised to see how many countries will be delighted to prove their "concern" for the disadvantaged (and hope to reap the resulting benefits) by supplying that "mob" with all the armaments they need. Mean- while, what will "our" side do keep feeding guns and ammunition to the racist regime which will inevitably lose? What a marvelous way to maintain our image of an overwhelmingly non-white, anti-colonial world.

Of course South Africa will be a mess, particularly by our standards. The whole country may slip back into Mr. Bollenbach's Stone Age, in which case their pretty city may become almost as dreary, dangerous, and unproductive as the South Bronx. Certainly their economy will suffer - when their version of E.F. Hutton speaks, NObody will listen. Given the vote, those blacks might elect a man with the morals of Richard Nixon.

One can't move into another person's land and run it unless you can argue that the natural owner is incapable of running that place himself and if, after 300 years, the descendents of the original owner still can't be trusted to participate in the management of the land, any intelligent onlooker knows who to blame.

And if, after all that time, the guy in charge says, in effect, just give me a few more weeks and everything will be swell, we all know what we are dealing with. Do we go along with such exploitation? Not if we are bright we don't, but that, of course, is open to question.

Weston, Conn.

Apartheid: another view

One of the most grievous misconceptions about the deteriorating apartheid system in South Africa is that what will be the end result of an overall change in that country is a communistic majority. All the suffering and oppressed blacks of that nation want is a chance for decent civil liberties and a chance at living in peace. As with the Negroes in our own country, before the abolition of slavery in the 1800s, they do not simply pose a threat to South Africa - they are South Africa - a people with feelings, ambitions, hopes, and dreams for a better life.

No cause for human rights can ever be ignored forever as long as people have compassion rather than hatred and fear in their hearts. We in the United States pride ourselves on being morally concerned, as that is what has made our country great. We must continue to provide an example of human freedom and individual integrity for other nations who are not as fortunate as we.

For those persons who perceive the black populace of South Africa as the source of violence and refer to it as a mob, it is a fact that white oppression, brutality, and torture are the cause of the blacks' misery and resulting anger. Peaceful tactics are being tried to change things by demonstrations, but history will prove that they do not always work during a revolution.

Finally, I believe, as in America, the blacks will gain their freedom and the whites will have to learn to live with their neighbors. Through humane endeavors, Botha's government will have to incorporate the rest of South Africa into white society, business, and education. As was true for us, keeping others separate from society makes them poorer, unemployable, and less educated, thus decreasing the potential of the economy. Give people real jobs, good education, and a rightful place in society, and peace and prosperity will reign.

Media, Penn.

An enthusiastic admirer

I was most interested to read Georgia Croft's article on my friend Marion Bratesman; indeed, the only thing that I regretted was that she did not contact me for my enthusiastic collaboration.

I first met Marion some twenty years ago, when an assignment for The Montreal Star took me to the Hopkins Center for an article on the Canadian actor Louis Turenne. Marion, meeting me for the first time, received me as an old valued friend; carpets - red

- were rolled out in various directions, doors were opened, and people called forth to be presented. Result - the beginning of a sustained and loyal friendship on her part, and, on mine, an enduring affection for Dartmouth College in general and for the Hopkins Center in particular.

I found myself lucky in having won Marion's personal friendship, for she is that rarest of creatures - an enthusiastic admirer when things go well, and a pillar of support when the natural blows of life seem harder than they should.

Montreal, Canada.

[Mr. Symcox is a producer for the CanadianBroadcasting Corporation. Ed.]

The tip of the iceberg

While I greatly fear that the present administration will never countenance the revival of the Indian symbol, I must agree with my classmate, Jack Cowan, that this is just the tip of the iceberg. (Alumni Magazine, Summer 1985.)

The old traditions are failing fast. Why must the Glee Club and other undergraduates be deprived of the many fine songs that Jack mentions? I have carefully gone over the words for "Eleazar" and can find nothing that would be offensive to Native Americans. If anyone is denigrated, it is Eleazar who, while he probably liked his rum as well as the other colonials and founding fathers, would never have founded a college whose "whole curriculum was five hundred gallons of New England rum." The song is a joke and I can only feel sorry for those who do not get the point.

As for the "Wah-Hoo-Wah," this has long been conceded to be meaningless in all Native American languages and can offend no one.

As I stood on the campus during reunion last June, I could not but wonder how long the weathervane on Baker Library would survive this period of iconoclasm.

I can only hope that these aberrations will pass. In the meantime, let's have a Wah-Hoo-Wah for Eleazar and the Indian symbol!

Waretown, N.J.

Brooding

I've brooded about elimination of the Indian

symbol more than I care to admit.

Long since, I knew that any written protest along these lines must be brief, or else I didn't have it right in my own mind.

It just happened tonight! In mussing through some Dartmouth material, there was the oft-quoted phrase/song "Glory to Dartmouth." The long brood suddenly found its outlet in a single sentence/thought - that there is no traditional Glory to Dartmouth without inclusion of the Indian as a life-force dynamic. For God sake - DO IT!

Chicago, Ill.

The dogs of war

The ruckus over ROTC has reached such

a level of annoyance that I am forced to take word processor in hand and peck out a few words in defense of the beleaguered dogs of war.

As I can best glean from the frenetic wails that have appeared in recent issues of the Alumni Magazine, the primary objection to ROTC on the Hanover Plain is that the hours required to hone young men into cannon fodder will somehow debase the quality of the Dartmouth diploma, rendering it impotent as a visa into such hallowed fields as investment banking, advertising, and marketing consultancy.

If my perceptions are correct, we have a tempest in a teapot, a problem the College can readily solve. All the administration need do is present two types of diplomas in accordance with the recipient's persuasion.

One would contain a disclaimer stating that it was the traditional document and entitled the bearer to be worthy of consideration by all Fortune 500 companies, as well as by such purveyors ,of instant affluence as the leading business, medical, law, and sundry other graduate schools.

Across the face of the second version would be stamped in caps, bold type: SECOND RATE. NOT FOR USE IN JOB APPLICATIONS OR OTHER. SENSITIVE PURPOSES. SUITABLE FOR FRAMING AND HOME USE ONLY. These would be handed out to ROTC imbibers, members of the football, hockey, basketball, and baseball teams, DOCers, Glee Clubbers, and others upon whom time demands are somewhat akin to those of parents struggling to scrape together sufficient dollars to meet today's tuition bills..

The academic fascisti would also have us believe that the presence of an ROTC unit cavorting about on campus would automatically subject the non-believers to some sort of militaristic AIDS virus, so contaminating that by senior year, the entire graduating class would be howling to march on Moscow.

The foregoing may lend the impression that I am an ardent jingoist who spends his waking hours cackling over the strategies of Clausewitz and von Moltke. Oddly enough, I am not. I find militarism as dismal a science as economics, and equally ridiculous.

My period of service in the Navy, while not without its positive moments, I regard as two of the most forgettable years in my life.

Some of the most golden human beings I have ever known, classmates of mine at Dartmouth, were butchered in World War II, as I could have easily been. I also regard the dragooning of young men into forced participation in the Vietnam outrage as the greatest crime ever committed upon citizens of this country.

ROTC holds no great charm for me. I am not pro-ROTC. I am pro-choice just as I am in the case of abortion. We can ill afford at Dartmouth that sort of self-righteous snobbery that would deny to others ways of life and thinking that we find distasteful or even abhorrent. There's also the thought that some students enrolled in ROTC are in the program because it provides them with the only means of obtaining an incredibly expensive education at one of this nation's finest schools.

When one can no longer abide discordant ideas, and must surround himself with minds that think precisely like his, it is time to take an extra look at that wondering face in the bathroom mirror tomorrow morning.

Melbourne Beach, Fla.

Reflections

I was dismayed by the letter published in the September issue of the Alumni Magazine under the caption "A sorry spectacle." John Barchilon, the author of that letter, is not only a fellow member of the Class of 1960 and a former floormate of mine in Russell Sage Hall, but he is a good friend today, one with whom I recently enjoyed a Bar-chilon-hosted Bastille Day celebration. Perhaps it is my present and historical relationship with John, and my enormous respect for his intellect, that rouses me to speak up and to respond.

Let me start by offering a note of hope to those who join in my love and concern for Dartmouth. While John registers his dissatisfaction by publicly acknowledging his "paltry" contribution to the College, I found while attending my recent 25th reunion that many of our class are choosing to reflect their affection and admiration for the College through substantial increases in Alumni Fund contributions. I am unabashed about identifying myself as one of those many.

As to the substance of John's letter, he first decries the lowering of academic standards to accommodate minorities. I know John too well to attribute his comments on the issue to racist concern for academic excellence. On the other hand, I am puzzled by his applause for minority student policy in our day - "We had minorities . . . and they were scarcely noticeable because they fit in perfectly." Sure "they" did - the one black in our entering class of 814 was indeed "scarcely noticeable."

Sarcasm aside, how can anyone examining any objective data conclude that Dartmouth's academic excellence is under siege. The test scores and secondary school academic performance of recent incoming Dartmouth classes, discounted for whatever factors one might deem relevant, far exceed those of 25 and 30 years ago. Indeed, Dartmouth's rejection of some of the high school seniors in southern California that I interviewed and recommended for admission to the Class of 1989, many of whom were admitted to the most elite of Dartmouth's sister institutions, speaks eloquently to the caliber of students entering Dartmouth in the 1980s. -What is most relevant in the context of John's letter is that all this is being accomplished during a period in which a slumbering Dartmouth has awakened to the realities of social strife and historical injustice in the United States and to its responsibility to help defuse that strife and remedy that injustice. It has also awakened to the reality that a diverse student body heightens awareness of and generates debate about controversial contemporary issues, something that in turn helps to educate men and women. Most relevant, perhaps, to John's concern about the retention of academic excellence, is the fact that high school students of the highest quality today simply will repudiate a college with a largely homogenous Caucasian student body; Dartmouth's failure to diversify demographically will serve to undermine, not preserve, its academic excellence.

The balance of John's letter can simply be characterized as conservative political rhetoric. I respect John's right to his views and to express them eloquently and vocally, but to condemn those members of the Dartmouth academic community who fail to excoriate Soviet aggression, who fail to lionize Vietnam veterans and Nicaraguan contms, and who fail to lobby for the inclusion of military science and ROTC in a liberal arts curriculum strikes me as bizarre, indeed. Dartmouth rightfully prides itself on producing thinking men and women. Some of those men and women think conservatively and some think liberally. Penalizing Dartmouth because of its diversity is not only wrong but it is antithetical to a goal of academic excellence. I only hope that John and others who share his views will not permit their political and philosophical ideologies to cloud their judgment about Dartmouth's mission and Dartmouth's need for alumni support.

Los Angeles, Calif.

IMr. Barchilon '60 replies.] That legal scholar, learned jurist, Joe Mandel, Revised my plaintiff writ as though I could not spell. But after studying the phrases printed there, I relaxed. His arguments, I think, are made of air. I never said that Dartmouth's standards had declined. Instead I chaffed because one set of rules had been assigned To minorities while a different set, a higher test, Was relentlessly applied to all the rest. I never said that Dartmouth had to be all white. Let each compete; if blacks predominate, all right. Nor do I scourge the faculty for leftist views; But rather blame them every day that they refuse To share the stage with those who sing a different song; Because the faculty believes that Right is Wrong.

A telling point

Professor Jonathan Mirsky's Letter to the Editor regarding The Dartmouth Review (Sept. '85) deserves comment. The point he makes about the Review's influence among those in the U.K. and elsewhere who know little or nothing of Dartmouth's broad liberal tradition and background is a telling one. No institution should be judged by a single viewpoint, and I am inclined to agree with the assessment Mr. Mirsky makes about the publication's influence: "at best absurd, at worst malicious." In particular the professor demonstrates what, from a longer range and historical perspective, any judgment of the Review is likely to be: a rather unique academic abnormality - unique in that, against all odds, it somehow continues to survive.

New Haven, Conn.

Relevant facts

It would seem that I am the keeper of an important secret. Even given your editorial expertise and your unrelenting search for interest and amusements, you seem to have overlooked some relevant facts in several of your recent articles (Summer and Sept. '85). For surely if you were aware of the name of the company that built the Hood Museum, or, for that matter, the company that is building the John W. Berry Sports Center, you probably would have included it in your articles. Furthermore, given that the Magazine is produced for alumni and supported by their contributions, it would surprise me to think that there was a reason for not including the name of the principal of that company. After all, sketches alone a building do not make!

I hope I don't have to keep this secret much longer.

New York, N.Y.

[Phillip R. Jackson '43, president of Jackson Construction Company, was pictured in our Summer 1985 issue along with other dignitaries atgroundbreaking ceremonies for the new dormcomplex on Wheelock Street. His company builtthe Hood Museum, of Art and many other buildings on campus. Ed.J

In the field

As a Dartmouth undergraduate, my international interests, spawned by World War II, were nurtured by President Dickey and the Great Issues course that was required of all seniors. In recent years I have extended these interests by serving the International Rescue Committee (IRC); in 1982 as the physician coordinator of Khao-I-Dang, the largest refugee camp in Thailand, and subsequently as a member of IRC's Board of Directors. I have also visited refugees in Lebanon and the Sudan and will return again this month to East Africa. These field experiences have persuaded me that IRC is one of the very best international relief agencies, whose staff and volunteers are currently aiding refugees from Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Eastern Europe, and the Soviet Union, Latin America, China, Iran, and South Africa. It is an organization eminently worthy of the support of Dartmouth men and women everywhere.

Hanover, N.H.

[Dr. Strickler, a professor of medicine at theDartmouth Medical School, is both a graduateand dean emeritus of DMS. Ed.]

No place in the College'sheart?

Believe it or not there are several - probably many - Dartmouth graduates currently making significant contributions to the art world. Perhaps it would have been appropriate for such a person to have made the convocation address inaugurating the Hood Museum.

Sadly, people like us seem to have no place in the College's heart. Our accomplishments aren't tangible enough to be "Give(n) a rouse for" and the College is content to import talent rather than acknowledge the feats of its sons and daughters as export quality.

In fact there is almost a stigma attached to being a Dartmouth artist. Writing this letter has forced me to realize that the College has nurtured this attitude.

It is my hope that Dartmouth will develop an attitude worthy of its fine new facility.

If you would recognize us, I think you would even be proud of us!

Brooklyn, N.Y.

Dartmouth today: modestlyprogressive

The Summer issue of the Alumni Magazine printed the usual number of vitriolic and abusive letters from disaffected Dartmouth grads, followed by two articles which shed particularly illuminating perspective on such alumni ravings. One was a review of David Butler's The Fall of Saigon, a book which characterizes the American withdrawal operation from that city as based upon the principles of "disinformation in a just cause" and "cover your ass." I served in Vietnam in 1968-69, and I can testify that these same values were guiding lights of American conduct there at that time, as well. Those of us who fought in Vietnam saw an ugly side of America and its hallowed ideals which will never leave our memories, and for which our various educations left us very ill-prepared indeed.

The subject of the second article, ex-So-viet dissident/prisoner Peter Vins '84, also has nightmarish memories. This is an article that a commie-hater like Fred Fuld Jr. '40 would delightedly use to support his onesided thinking. It would probably be useless to show Mr. Fuld a book such as James Baldwin's The Fire Next Time in which an American writes of the oppression that drove him to leave this country, for while Mr. Fuld does not join fellow correspondents James W. Mitchell '30, W. M. Bollenbach '49, and Bob Wilbee '51 in proclaiming Merle Haggard's immortal phrase, "If you don't love it, leave it," one suspects that this great maxim is nonetheless one of the pillars of his wisdom, and no doubt he would construe Baldwin's flight to Europe as ammunition for his own arguments. But introspective interpretation of the Vins article points more accurately to the tragedy of injustice wherever it is found in human society; in Russia, South Africa, America, and every other nation on earth. Vins is a man who was persecuted for non-conformity in his native country. Americans should rejoice that non-conformity must ordinarily reach criminal proportions before it is punished by imprisonment or deportation here, but that virtue does not give us license to ignore that inequality and waste of our own money-dominated system nor excuse us from the unrelenting struggle to improve the lot of all our citizens.

The turbulent, protesting decade of the 1960s was a repugnant one to Mr. Mitchell and Richard A. Burke '29, but there are others who remember it as a time when people had the conscience and the courage to oppose war and demand the liberty, equality, and justice our national heritage promises us. I for one know that I chose the wrong battle when I went to Vietnam to kill gooks instead of fighting bloodlessly for peace here on my own soil; it is a mistake I would not make again. Peter Vins observes that he ". . . learned much more about this country, this culture, working at Lou's [Restaurant] for the last four years than being a Dartmouth student." His words are ringingly, though unwittingly, echoed by the infantile and eternal occupation of our alumni with the Indian symbol. Perhaps if we all had washed more dishes and indulged less in pseudo-academic ego inflation when we were at Dartmouth, we might have broadened our understanding of life until it really made a difference to us whether people all over the world are suffering from unwarranted and unnecessary hunger, cruelty, and exploitation. Perhaps then we would actually allow the consciousness of their plight to affect the way we ourselves live, instead of clinging all our lives to a hollow American dream.

The Dartmouth of today, with co-education,

the Dartmouth Plan, and other evidences of a modestly progressive spirit that appear from time to time in the Alumni Magazine, is making a far stronger effort to impart a realistic education to its students than it did when I was there. I applaud its advances, even if they fall woefully short of what they might be, and, yes, even if sacred traditions topple before them.

Minneapolis, Minn.

Sacrebleu!

I was very interested in the articles on the opening of the Hood Museum of Art (Alumni Magazine, Sept. '85) but I wonder who wrote the caption on p. 40 for the wonderful New Hampshire (White Mountain Landscape) by ."Regis Frangois Gignoux, French"?

The correct name of the artist is Marie- Frangois-Regis Gignoux, sometimes called Regis Gignoux, but never the form used with the picture. And while he was born in Lyon in 1814, he came to America at the age of twenty-six and stayed until 1869. He was named a member of the National Academy in 1851 and was the first president of the Brooklyn Art Association in 1861. He is correctly identified in most art histories as an American artist, as are his French-born contemporaries Paul Lacroix (1827-1869) and Constant Mayer (1829-1911), because the majority of their mature works were executed in this country.

New York, N.Y.

[Barbara J. MacAdam, curator of the Hood Museum of Art, responds: Mr. Hull is quite correctto point out Regis Gignoux's full name and hisinvolvement in American art circles. We standby Regis Frangois as one of the many variationson the artist's name, however. It is also the formin which his name appears in many biographicaldictionaries, including Benezit's Dictionnaire des Peintres, Sculpteurs, Dessinateurs at Graveurs, and Groce and Wallace's Dictionary of Artists in America 1564-1860. Because Gignoux was born and died in France yet workedprimarily in the United States, the question ofhis nationality is problematic and in the endsomewhat arbitrary. As Mr. Hull points out sowell, however, Gignoux's artistic allegiance wasclearly with his 19th-century American contemporaries. On that basis, we have included hispainting New Hampshire (White Mountain Landscape) in the museum's American gallery,where it serves as a focal point on a wall of 19th-century American landscapes depicting theWhite Mountains. We are delighted that Mr.Hull has taken the time to elaborate on the careerof this distinguished and relatively little knownartist.]