Letters

Intemperate Attack

Your excellent December '84 issue was marred for me, a little, by one non-editorial item: the Dartmouth Bookstore ad (p. 12). That ad, for Benjamin Hart's Poisoned Ivy, seems to have been prepared in consultation with a skilled libel lawyer, for its invective against "our best colleges" carefully avoids attacking Dartmouth specifically the anonymous copywriter saying only that "Hart finds Dartmouth not unlike some of our other great colleges" that are willfully polluting the academic environment by departures from the right, the good, and the true.

I find this anonymous, intemperate attack on the College quite offensive. Possibly I'll turn out to be the one alumnus who expresses his resentment of that attack in writing but at this moment I doubt it. In any event, I hope you find room for my letter.

New York, N.Y.

Reader's Guide to Poisoned Ivy

Because the book Poisoned Ivy will get high readership, I thought that its readers, and your readers, might like some help, some thoughts on what to look for. The reader should be prepared to find revealed a group of super-bright Dartmouth College students. While most of their peers were trying to find out how the world was structured, these kids were manipulating it. An awesome feat.

And probably, the reader will find the book absorbing. I did.

The jacket says that the book is filled with humor. True, I guess. But the humor is mostly at the expense of other people (read cruel). What is revealed is an unfortunate trait of some very intelligent people their egos demand a constant put-down of others.

Another way of putting this is that some super-brights mask their social insecurity through overt intellectual arrogance a re- curring theme to watch for.

And the reader must be aware of "labeling," which is a primary persuasive technique used in the book. Be careful of it, too. Labels such as "conservative," "liberal," "racist," etc., have a nice way of seeming accurate while masking the truth. They are the tools of the master propagandist, they feed the flames of prejudice, they are divisive, and they are, for the most part, inaccurate.

And the reader will be confronted by a number of ironies:

1. That the author has a problem with minority groups, yet he is a member of one.

2. That his most valuable course was selfjudged to be Creative Writing, and yet, as Bill Buckley accurately implies, it failed him ... or vice versa.

3. That The Review, which was directed in part by the author and which was President Kemeny's most virulent problem, was caused by, and was the logical result of, his administration's failure to understand that the business of education is to teach both the mind and the conscience (read soul).

And the reader will want to ask a number of questions such as:

1. How could the author, being highly intelligent, and having found Christianity at Aquinas House, have failed to understand that a basic tenet of the Christian belief is "Love thy Neighbor"?

2. What exactly has been the result of the Steel candidacy? Has he lived up to the promise that his supporters invested him with?

The reader will also encounter the transparent and maudlin attempts by the author to create an image of campus acceptance by dotting the story with football hero friends and heterosexual love affairs.

Basically, the hidden agenda of the book is that it is a paean to The Review, and what it stands for, and should be evaluated in that context.

In short, the book's most important contribution is to further one's insights into the behavior patterns of an interesting minority group, the super-bright, during their adolescent years. That the author will make an important future contribution to society is, in my opinion, an inescapable conclusion. In a way, he already has. And in future years, I predict that he will look back on this book with regret, not that he wrote it, but that it wasn't better done.

Finally, if the book was intended to be an indictment of Dartmouth, the College need not worry. I am reminded of a poem by Emily Dickinson which says in part, "With will to choose, or to reject,/ And I choose just a throne." Which is exactly what most alumni will ultimately do with the content of PoisonedIvy choose to reject it and to polish the throne that most of us think of as Dartmouth.

Westport, Conn

ROTC: A Mistaken Course

"I would no more teach children military training than teach them arson, robbery, or assassination."

Eugene Debs

The College is on a track towards the reintroduction of ROTC. I hope this letter will do some good to stop Dartmouth from heading on that mistaken course.

The very nature of military training is antithetical to the values of a liberal arts education institution. The military stresses obedience and devotion while a liberal arts education teaches one to question, examine, and evaluate.

Military indoctrination does not deserve to be given academic legitimacy by linking it to Dartmouth and her proud intellectual tradition. Ours would no longer be an institution in pursuit of truth, rather we would be burdened by the stigma of granting degrees to military technocrats. There was a time, during the Second World War, when it was necessary to use the College for military training. That time has long since passed, and I see no argument for returning ROTC to Dartmouth.

Some will argue that ROTC will bring diversity to the campus. They ignore the onesidedness with which military instructors present the world. They ignore that in any other class there can be open disagreement (the essential basis for intellectual development), but the military will only allow for one way of thinking: its own. This kind of "diversity" is not needed at Dartmouth.

Four billion people in the world depend on America's leadership for preserving the peace. America depends on the leadership of men and women taught under the highest intellectual standards of insight, reason, and analysis to guide her out of our nuclear age and into the future. Dartmouth ought to develop a School of Peace rather than become an extension program for the Department of Defense.

I sincerely hope that concerned alumni inform the Trustees of the College of their opposition to military education becoming a part of the Dartmouth curriculum. The faculty has voted to uphold Dartmouth's intellectual standards and has rejected the reintroduction of ROTC to the campus. They deserve our thanks and support for their position. Let us keep Dartmouth a premier liberal arts institution.

Boston, Mass.

[For late developments in the ROTC situation atDartmouth, see news items in The College andalso Pres. McLaughlin's statement on p. 36. Ed.J

Love it or . . .

In past years I interviewed many candidates for Dartmouth in the New York City area. Many of them had a great misconception of what the College would be like and what it would have to offer.

In my day we certainly had complete freedom of expression and always respected theother fellow's opinion.

Some of the people who came to Dartmouth inevitably found it to be not what they had imagined for various reasons atmosphere, associations, curriculum, etc. But if they didn't like its traditions and ways, they went somewhere else. They didn't try to remodel the College to fit their own tastes.

I state the above with the greatest respect for the many problems under which President McLaughlin is laboring.

Short Hills, N.J.

A Little Discretion

As a member of the Class of '73, in the era right before the advent of gay student organizations, it has never occurred to me before to reveal my homosexuality to the Dartmouth community. However, the egregiously ignorant anti-homosexual letter by Charles Palmer '23 (Oct. 'B4) compels me. His insensitivity, facile reasoning, and absurd misinformation about homosexuals are unworthy of our institution and our alumni magazine. The dissemination of such misguided and hateful opinions does not, as far as I can understand, fall within the boundaries of "freedom of expression and accepted standards of good taste" (editorial policy statement). I am not advocating censorship, just a little editorial discretion or at least a referral of letters like Palmer's to The Revieiv.

I graduated cum laude from Dartmouth, with highest honors in English. I then earned a master's degree and worked for three years on a Ph.D., while teaching on the university level. Here in Los Angeles (we're neighbors, Mr. Palmer), I have held positions of respons ibility at the major television networks and have worked for several film studios. I am a member of the executive committee of the class of '73 and have worked for the Alumni Fund. I have written a novel (unpublished) which would put most published works these days to shame. I have art incredible network of friends straight and gay who love and respect me, as I do them. I have a family I cherish. And two great dogs. Not so different, at least structurally, from many Dart- mouth graduates, I'd guess.

If, despite all the elements I have in common with other Dartmouth graduates and myriad human beings, I am to be considered a pervert by Palmer, along with "child molesters and torture-rapists," so be it. I will end my letter as Palmer ended his: "These are [indeed] unhappy times for clear thinking and simple decency."

Los Angeles, Calif.

Hooray

Hooray for Gayle Gilman ("Getting Better with Age," Oct. '84)!

Here is a statement which transcends much of the nonsensxe we have had to endure in recent years. Make this required reading for students and faculty alumni, too. Clone this woman. Check her profile for admissions standards.

Woodbury, Conn

Occom's Legacy

Dartmouth's development as a college, financed by funds raised to support an Indian school, is interesingly set forth in W.D. Quint's The Story of Dartmouth, Boston, 1922, and in much greater detail in L.B. Richardson's two-volume work, History of Dartmouth College, Hanover, 1932. Both spine and title page of each volume of the latter work, published by Dartmouth College Publ ications, display a logotype showing a semin aked human figure with long braids of hair over the shoulders, an adornment (feathers?) at the top of the head, left arm extended in a peaceful gesture above the head, and right hand holding a book. Around the elliptical border runs the Latin phrase of John the Baptist, "Vox clamantis in deserto."

When Dr. Wheelock, in Connecticut, wished to raise funds abroad for extending northward his Christianization of Indians, he chose as representatives the Rev. Mr. Nathaniel Whitaker and the Mohegan Indian minister, Samson Occom. Richardson quotes a description of Occom, in part: "He was about the medium height, had rather a full face and a bright intelligent expression, with a full share of the Indian look . . . His dress was entirely English ... he spoke without notes and with a freedom which showed he had a good command of the subject." The 1932 Aegis, however, shows a Samuel (sic) Occom in a courtly surrounding, dressed in leather breeches and a kind of kilt, bare above the waist with an elaborate necklace, some fringe, a forearm bracelet guaranteed to cut off circulation, two feathers, and a blanket. His Caucasian features are pinched.

The immensely successful fund-raising in England and Scotland was followed by inevitable unchristian scheming and politicking to the end that "... the College charter had taken away from the English trust (funds raised there by Occom) all control over the institution; it had, moreover, established an ordinary college for whites, an action never contemplated or stressed in the appeals of Occom and Whitaker in England to the charitable persons from whom the money was obtained." Occom considered the scheme to be a fraudulent diversion of the money from the "poor Indians" to the whites. He wrote Wheelock, in part, "I'think that your College has too much Worldly Grandeur for the Poor Indians. They'll never have much benefit of it."

Occom's words proved true. Only within the last few years has Dartmouth College begun in earnest its redemption of the fraud. But now, a handful of the alumni, and a reactionary group of students, supported by large off-campus funds, have made the present "Indian" students unwelcome.

From Ecclesiastes (Dartmouth Bible, Chamberlain and Feldman, Boston, 1950) we read:

"Deliver him that suffereth wrong from the hand of the oppressor; and be not fainthearted when thou sittest in judgment." Let all those who have escaped or their forebears earlier from oppression in other lands to the freedom and wealth of America, reconsider our moral obligations to this little group of Natives at Dartmouth whose homeland we occupy.

Eaton Center, N.H

Playing it Safe

In September 1984, nine members of the Class of 1924 received handsome, suitably engraved Paul Revere bowls, in grateful recognition of their having given to the Alumni Fund all of the 60 years consecutively since June 1924. I am one of the nine.

That's each year and every year for a solid six decades, with no intentional omission or unintentional slip-up. A habit-forming pattern not easily broken. Now, however, distressing and worsening ills which currently beset the College persuade me to make a firm decision.

I will contribute no more money to the Dartmouth Alumni Fund until the dignified Indian symbol is completely restored, along with the "Eleazar Wheelock" song and the Wah-Hoo-Wah cheer. And David McLaughlin stops cautiously "playing it safe" and begins to assert and exert some bold leadership.

Deny, N.H.

Indian Fantasies

Lately, I have paid attention again to opinions in the Alumni Magazine, after a few years of negligence. To my astonishment, I find the dispute still raging over the "Indian symbol." I can understand an initial period of disagreement years ago, before the decision was made. But I now have difficulty understanding why it still goes on. In particular, I wonder why some consider it a "conservative" issue. What is "conservative" about it?

1) Are those who want to readopt the "Indian symbol" conservative enough to wish the original missionary-oriented goals for Indian students wished by Eleazar Wheelock, Samson Occom, and the Fowlers, James Dean, Samuel Kirkland, and others duringthe late 18th century? (The others, of course, included Lord Dartmouth.) Even if so, and I don't assume so, for several strong reasons Christian missionary organizations these days don't use the "instructional" technique of separating Indian youth from their tribes into a distant boarding school (like Moor's) or a college.

2) Are they conservative enough to practice the doctrine of limited powers? That has been a traditionally conservative doctrine. Are they willing to accept a limit on their own formidable power of disaffection among the Dartmouth community? Do they aim at reimposing the "Indian symbol" regardless of its injustice to Native American students whose personal presence on campus has become a more fitting symbol? Regardless of the due process by which College officers deliberated and decided the question?

3) Are they conservative enough to favor the bedrock values of liberal arts education which Dartmouth inherited from English and other European centers of learning, unknown to King Phillip and Pontiac? I made a list of the 20 most vivid and grateful memories of my own experience as a Dartmouth student years ago: booklined faculty dens and beer-scented dorm rooms, Baker and Sanborn stacks, seats in Dartmouth Hall and Webster Hall, granite hillsides and the banks of the Connecticut River; none had any essential relation to the "Indian symbol."

4) Are they conservative enough to put reality before fantasy? Conservatives consider realism as one of their main assets. Attractive as the "Indian symbol" may feel to the innocence of our fantasies as we recall old pep rallies and and the Hovey Grill walls, after all it comes down as pur subjectivity, no real Indian. By analogy, when I join the "Christmas" fantasies of holly, wassail, and jingle bells, people regard me as a liberal, but when I preach the nagging report of Christ's actual Nativity, my liberal latitude narrows and I am unmasked as a conservative. Likewise I let NAD pop my balloon of Indian fantasies. That's as Samson Occom would have wanted it.

Mystic, Conn

If at First

I was delighted to see in the Alumni Magazine that one of the students in the College is a Tlingit. Their culture has produced art that is respected, admired, and sought after by museums and collectors all over this continent and in all the capitals of Europe as well. Try to buy a Tlingit artifact or objet d'art, and you will see what I mean to say.

Surely, representatives of the College, including Native American students and the bright kids at The Review and a committee of interested pre-Kemeny alumni, could select a symbol, a logo, that would bring everybody back together again.

As I write this, I have a sense of deja vu. I think I wrote, or meant to write, this same suggestion to someone in Hanover several years ago. Oh, well, if at first you don't succeed try, try again. An authentic and fierce face taken from a totem pole, or a mask, might tie up all the loose ends. It is, of course, just a suggestion.

Uniontoum, Pa

Big Green: AnotherStereotype

The controversy over the Indian symbol is leading otherwise decent liberals to overlook the crass insensitivity toward students and alumni of Irish heritage expressed in the racially offensive stereotype "Big Green." Especially when, as any compassionate arch- eologist can tell us, our own Dartmouth football field may be built over an old Irish burial ground. My grandfather Dennis would be turning over in his grave if he hadn't been cremated.

Los Angeles, Calif.

Playing with Numbers

It is interesting to note that the number of men admitted to the Class of 1988 at Dartmouth is now lower than the number admitted 50 years ago.

In the December 1984 issue of The Bulletin it is stated that 60 percent of the 1,062 admitted last September are males, which is in the neighborhood of 637 men.

At least 50 more men were admitted in 1934. I counted 696 names in the Freshman Green Book of the Class of 1938. Just two observations. If the admissions were on a 60-40 basis in 1934, I probably would not have been at Dartmouth to major in the Dartmouth Outing Club. On the other hand, if I had been admitted to a coed Dartmouth I beleive that I would have been in favor of one-third male, two-thirds female.

Poughkeepsie, N.Y.

An Amazing Statement

The advertisement paid for and endorsed by the faculty, student, and community members appearing in the December 1984 Magazine, "NAD Rejects Review Poll," constituted, in its last five paragraphs, something I have long been interested in reading, a NAD Manifesto.

Reading the article I got the eerie feeling the education the NAD's being subjected to at Dartmouth was aimed at and succeeded in instilling in them the ability to automatically, irrationally, react with rage to any mention of Dartmouth's Indian, Dartmouth's original songs, Dartmouth's unique cheers, just as the education Pavlov's dogs were subjected to instilled in them the ability to automatically, irrationally, react with saliva to a ringing bell.

Finishing the article left me sad for the cosseted pedagogy Dartmouth was inflicting on the unfortunate NADs, sadder for the lasting damage it was doing to them, and a bit surprised at the Trustees allowing it to be done to anybody.

The surprise that borders on the incomprehensible to me is how the Trustees can have for so long failed to recognize, and acon the recognition, that NADism and Volsteadism are equally harmful, identical twin fanaticisms, successfully imposing the nonsense of the intellectual and moral superiority of their respective fixations on the College now, courtesy of her Trustees, and on the country, in the past, courtesy of the Volstead Act and the 18th Amendment.

Finally, I read the introduction to the advertisement with its concluding amazing statement that the NAD ad exemplified "the best values of a liberal arts education and the best of a Dartmouth education." At that, I burst out laughing.

If that statement about the advertisement truly states the position of the faculty, administration, president, and Trustees of Dart- mouth College today, then I passionately apologize to all those intellectually and morally inferior Dartmouth men and women, living and dead, the faculties that taught them and the administrators that saved them, for not having burst out crying.

Delray Beach, Fla.

Hard to Fault

For the most constructive suggestion yet made in the Great Dartmouth Symbol Controversy, my vote goes to James Tremblay '55 (his letter appeared in the January-February issue of the Alumni Magazine). If Dartmouth is identified as an academic leader in the humanitarian effort to improve the lot of Native Americans, a return to the Indian symbol will be most appropriate and indeed hard to fault.

Incidentally, as I reflect on the past actions of the College in this Indian symbol matter, I'm reminded that my graduate school, the University of Illinois, has its Chief Illiniwek who performs uncensored! the ritual dances at major sports events. As far as I am aware, there has been no movement to abandon this tradition at Urbana/Champaign.

Islesboro, Maine

No Disrespect Intended

Won't most of the readers of the December issue of the Alumni Magazine containing the advertisement protesting the Indian symbol be puzzled about why the symbol is an embarrassment to the undergraduates who signed it? After all the symbol emerged quite naturally as an honor and tribute to characteristics that were widely admired.

Dartmouth College was founded and developed in a wilderness that was "home" to the Indians, but where white men could only survive with difficulty. Thus it was a fact that Eleazar was not aiming to change the Indians' valor, intelligence, or adaptability, but merely his religion and level of knowledge of another's world.

Living as we do today, in a highly developed and sophisticated society, it is hard to visualize winter's isolation in Hanover up to the time of W.W.11. Not only were life's activities more physical, but finances for all were quite limited. In those days we considered ourselves lucky to have the opportunity to go to College; to gain entrance and to graduate was a heaven-sent gift.

Because it was common knowledge just how disciplined Indians were under difficult conditions, we, in our fantasies, considered ourselves to be Dartmouth Indians, being modern inheritors of their traditions.

This was especially true when it came to the out-of-Hanover football weekends and holidays. We descended upon Boston and the girls' colleges in a lemming-like mass migration under rather difficult travel conditions. It was a "Down from the Hills we come, run girls run" situation, which locally was called "pee-raids." They probably exist in a modified form today.

The spirit of obviously fanciful Dartmouth Indians was caught both by our poet and artist in the Hovey murals as an exquisite spoof of the experiences common to generations of Dartmouth students in their pursuit of a "Dream of Fair Women," reaching after but not often obtaining that dream.

We were, as you are today, "part of the winds of change which are forever renewing this land of youth," Dartmouth College.

Our traditions make Dartmouth undying to the alumni who are loyal to their dying day; why be embarrassed by them? Since we are human beings, born to imperfection, we cannot change anyone, only ourselves. We can set constructive examples, and laugh at our foibles. Laughter is wonderful medicine for it is part of becoming sane and civilized in an often insane world.

No disrespect was ever intended by anyone, so come laugh with us.

Troy, Ohio

Dead, Zonkers, Kaput

Taking my cue from the apparently endless stream of alumni who cling to their wish for an Indian symbol thirteen years after it was made dead, zonkers, kaput. . . and from the Wah-Hoo-Wah Dartmouth students of 1985 who were at most nine years old when the Indian symbol disappeared.

May I suggest an appropriate symbol to and for all of the above the Dartmouth Mules.

Boston, Mass

Against the Grain

I would hope that, by now, the endless bickering over the Indian symbol could come to an end. If the alumni of our beloved Dartmouth applied their remarkable energies and talents to such issues as arms control and balancing the federal budget with a fourth as much vigor as that applied to the Indian symbol debate, our country would be in far better shape today. But we seem destined to be buffeted month after month, year after year, by colloquy that generates more heat than light and, with the kind assistance of The Review, can only lead to bitterness.

Frankly, I don't give a damn whether every Native American outside of Dartmouth approves or disapproves of the Indian symbol. Their views are irrelevant. Equally irrelevant is how we, as alumni of an earlier generation, feel about the Indian symbol, or that we never thought about that symbol as a caricature or racial pejorative. What is relevant is how our progeny at Dartmouth whether Native American or otherwise look at the matter, and whether we are willing to listen to fellow Dartmouth men and women who are deeply and personally offended by the Indian symbol.

I doubt there is a single Dartmouth alumnus or alumna who would not shudder at the prospect of having as a symbol a Dartmouth Jew, a Dartmouth Jap, a Dartmouth Chink, or a Dartmouth WASP. The mere fact that we would single out any racial, ethnic, or religious community in this fashion runs against the grain of everything that Dartmouth has stood for. Why, then, should we have such difficulty in understanding how offensive the Indian symbol has become to our fellow Dartmouth colleagues who are Native Americans? Why can't we understand that racism, however well-intentioned and traditional it may be, reflects poorly on us all? Why can't we grow out of this irrational fixation with a symbol so peripheral and unessential to the core of the Dartmouth experience that our preoccupation with it demeans us all and the College?

For myself, I would not risk the loss of respect of a single Dartmouth student or alumnus for the College by insisting that the College, responding to the wishes of a majority, transgress such a fundamental, personal, and sacred right as the right to attend an institution totally free from the slightest hint of racism. Surely, we can all agree on that point, if no other.

Encino, Calif.

Stereotyping

I doubt whether many of our undergraduates or graduates realize how highly insensitive it is for them to clamor for the return of the Indian as a symbol and/or mascot for the College since it is a classic example of stereotyping. It brings to mind the old Alphabet Book in which the Indian representing the letter "I" was the only human symbol that was used. The others were either animals or objects. During the past decade, leading educators throughout the country finally recognized that this denigrated Indians by equating them with animals and objects. Therefore, many have eliminated the Indian symbol from the Alphabet Book.

It is interesting to note that the suggested alternatives for a new Dartmouth symbol are animals, objects, or no longer contemporary human designations such as the Vikings. Those who are so adamant for the return of the Indian symbol overlook the fact that they are still a living group. Some would have us believe that the Indian symbol or mascot at Dartmouth represents the best qualities of the Indian such as bravery, manliness, and the like. However, the character at the football game in red tights appears as a savage out to scalp his enemies.

The excellent advertisement by NAD tells it as it really was and is. It is too bad that they had to pay for an advertisement that contributes important information and facts that many alumni do not know or choose to ignore. If we are insistent on having a contemporary symbol that truly represents the College, we might explore the far right that could provide us with many symbols or mascots more in keeping with some of Dartmouth's attitudes.

As he surveyed the misery and deaths inflicted on his and other tribes, an-old Indian chief observed sadly that there are whites and there are humans. Perhaps he had a point there.

Newton Highlands, Mass.

Some Saturnine Remarks

A few saturnine and one enthusiastic comments on your November 1984 issue.

1. The Kemeny article was great; I'm on my way out to get Jean's book as soon as I get the rest of this off my chest.

2. The piece "Ruffly Speaking" is sheer and unutterable nonsense. The Indian controversy never should have been permitted to get off the ground. To suggest that Dartmouth should now go to the dogs even such a lovable critter as a Golden Retriever is barely short of pusillanimous. I well recall that in the 20s Indians were regarded with admiration, affection, and respect. My classmate, Fred Owl, achieved distinction wholly irrespective of his ancestry and skin color. Here in Vero Beach, our high school is known as the Fighting Indians. Cleveland has not suffered nor crawled for being the home of the Indians. There are plenty of other examples. Why, oh why, must we be victims of our own hypersensitivity and false guilt complex when we should proudly rest on our beginnings as Moor's Indian Charity School?

3. I find James Heffernan's speech on the draft to be somewhat wide of the mark. What he fails to deal with is that we are an ordered and orderly society in which obedience to law is the norm. If we don't like the law, mechanisms are available to us to change it. The draft (registration) exists because of the decision of our peers, or their elected representatives. I concede that this may seem theoretical and remote to someone with the draft board breathing hot on his neck, but the alternative is anarchy. If one is free to make up one's own mind about obeying the draft registration law, why is not one equally free to make up one's mind as to all other laws? The function of the College is not to condone, foster, or support a lawless society. Why should it equivocate in the case of the draft?

Vero Beach, Fla.

The Dartmouth Alumni Magazine welcomes comment about College affairs and the edited content of this Magazine. The Editor reserves the right to determine the suitability of letters for publication, using as standards accuracy, relevance, and good taste. Letters should not exceed 400 words and may be edited at the discretion of the Editor. Letters must be signed, with address and telephone included for verification.