Letters

The Search

It is essential that the school's next president possess the ability and appearance both to restore order to a volatile atmosphere and to foresee what is required to maintain Dartmouth's preeminence in academic circles. Easier said than done, I know, but Dartmouth needs a name, an individual with a reputation for success in laying new courses of direction.

In order to accomplish this, the new president should not be of the select Dartmouth coterie. A fresh, new perspective is in order, and that cannot be found either among the alumni or the Dartmouth faculty; old resentments would persist, and the "usagin'-them" mind set would be virtually impossible to dispel.

With the right leader, Dartmouth will appear to the outside world as what we already know it to be: the premier undergraduate institution in the country. The choice of president is of extraordinary magnitude; please, let's not blow it.

Chicago, Illinois

Dartmouth College is at a crossroads. It has been picked as the tenth best U.S. university by the nation's college presidents (in U.S. News and World Report), but it wouldn't be in the top 50 of the man in the street outside New England.

We have a choice. We can allow ourselves to succumb to the stereotyped images offered by too many of the nation's press or we can become the great College envisioned by all of us in the Community who have worked hard but are still waiting for such an emergence. In that light, Dartmouth's next president might reflect the following criteria:

1) We need a leading "name" intellectual with vision. Except for John Kemeny, we have not had a true academician for half a century.

2) A social science background in a field such as psychology, sociology, or communications would help. Part of the Dartmouth community's vitality rests in its diversity. Given the events of the past few years, it may well take an extensive background in social science to understand the needs of all the constituencies.

3) A Dartmouth heritage is NOT required! It may be time for a new perspective, one from the nation more than from the Community. Too much nitpicking and petty squabbling have caused many to lose sight of the overarching goal—to be one of the nation's great learning centers.

4) The new president must have the ability to be an effective public voice for the College throughout the nation. When Derek Bok speaks, the nation listens. It's about time we went to school on that model.

Longmeadow, Massachusetts

Civil Rep

I recently returned from Forsyth County, Georgia, after one of the largest civil rights marches in history. More than 20,000 people gathered to protest racism by marching through an all-white county—a county that allowed the Ku Klux Klan to march on the same day in the same area. At the end of the march, while we stood on the courthouse lawn and listened to a veritable Who's Who in civil rights history, I was less than 100 yards from a Klan rally.

What I want to share with you, however, is not what happened at Forsyth County but what happened when I got back to Hanover. I am currently working in West Lebanon, and most of my co-workers knew where I went. One question struck me hard.

The question was: "Which side did you march on?"

When I first heard that, I was floored. I replied, tartly, "The right side." But other people kept repeating that question throughout the next several days. "Why do you ask?" I said finally. The answer everyone gave startled the hell out of me. It was given in all seriousness from intelligent people.

The answer? "You went to Dartmouth, right?"

Wahpeton, North Dakota

I read with great interest about the twoday celebration of the birth of Martin Luther King.

Would you be good enough to tell me what were the planned celebrations for Lincoln's and Washington's birthdays.

Highland Park, Illinois

Washington's Arithmetic

Regarding "Frost, Mencken, and Webster's Socks" (January/February issue): While it is unclear exactly what the young George Washington had in mind by a "Solid Foot" of marble, a block measuring 12 inches by 19 inches by 14 inches would, of course, contain only 1 and 61/72 cubic feet, which would seem to be the most usual way of measuring solid volume. It is difficult, therefore, to see how our founding father would have correctly come up with a result as large as 16 and 15/24 "Solid Feet" unless stone masons of the time had some ingenious way of stretching out their materials long since forgotten.

Of course, George Washington was to become a noted Mason (a.k.a. Freemason) in adult life (pun intended); so perhaps that had something to do with it!

Los Angeles, California

Hoppy's Name

All Dartmouth alumni have an interest in the campus. I objected strenuously to the use by the shanty builders of "our campus," and I object strenuously to the backers of the Hopkins Institute of "our" Hopkins. He was Dartmouth to many of us.

My guess is that, if he were alive and had been approached by this group for the use of his name, the answer would have been a resounding No!

Needham, Massachusetts

Avery Raube and associates should remember that the Orozco Murals were painted during the Hopkins presidency. The alumni of Mr. Raube's persuasion at that time also thought the College was about to disintegrate. Ernest M. Hopkins would not appreciate being used as an emblem for the "good old days." He built for the future.

Jericho Center, Vermont

Lifetime's Wisdom

May I be allowed to correct a stupid mistake I made when answering Lee Michaelides' request for a list of books I intended to read as a cure for the winter blahs (January/February issue). Where I got the notion that Evan Connell's Son of the MorningStar was a novel is now beyond recall. It is, in fact, of course, a book of history and biography.

Since I have to write with this correction, I hope you will also allow me to add that I have now read the book. It is not only a cure for the winter blahs but also a work of remarkable power and insight, something to be cherished and celebrated, I believe, as a wise man's sharing of a lifetime's wisdom.

Historian of the Dickey Presidency

The Song

Is it really possible that one can be admitted to the Dartmouth of today and not understand the difference between the denotative meaning of words and the subtle and often beautiful connotative meaning? Can a female student feel excluded by the words ".men of Dartmouth?"

It offends my sense of what a liberal arts education is, if those who live, teach, and study in Dartmouth's hallowed collegial atmosphere can no longer distinguish the difference between literal meaning and poetic license. If this is, in fact, the case then I urge that the Alma Mater be changed, because then it must also be true that today's Dartmouth is no longer the one that I attended, the Dartmouth represented by the present Alma Mater. Make whatever decisions are appropriate!

Otherwise let the Alma Mater issue rest, for changing it will do nothing to dignify the college, and will offend the vast majority of alumni to whom the Alma Mater is an integral part of their Dartmouth memories. To those who feel offended that the masculine gender is used in expressing the spirit of the Dartmouth experience, my only reply is that the words do not pertain to them. They have not yet felt the mystique that binds the "loyal sons of Dartmouth."

Longmeadow, Massachusetts

Save the Letters

In the December "Letters," Arthur B. LaFrance has written a piece of nonsense that reveals how far we have gone off course: he wants to stop having all the fine ideas, challenges, etc., exhibited by those who write letters to the editor. In fact, his very unthinking piece answers why we should continue to read the "Letters." Please never stop them, for it is, I'm sure, the only way we who are getting older can get the real news of the College.

Bricktown, New Jersey

Fulltime Citizen

Sometimes the most needed kind of help is not understood at the time it's given, either by the receiver or the giver.

In the winter of my sophomore year my academic performance had captured the attention of the College's administration in the same way the performance of the former Chicago Cub player Emil Verban continues to capture the attention of avid baseball statisticians (one home run in 2,911 at bat). Would I quit or would I be requested to leave were the only questions.

Al Rozycki was a senior just coming off a football season in which all honors were his. I knew him slightly - we were in the same fraternity - he barely knew me. One day we happened to walk together to Baker Library; this was usually the road less travelled by, as my grades attested. As we walked, he began to talk to me about James Joyce and how toward the end of his life Joyce's sight began to deteriorate rapidly but that he didn't let it stop him. He simply wrote larger and larger. AI Rozycki told me the story with his special fervor. Only when I read about him in the Alumni Magazine did I recall how much that anecdote came to mean and how it somehow helped me to get started, to pick up my pace.

With all the whining that has burdened the pages of this magazine over the last few years, the Al Rozycki story ("In Pursuit of a Pediatrician," December) stands in sharp relief. The article focuses our attention on the real mission of our College: to produce full-time citizens like Al Rozycki.

Dallas, Texas

Majestic Joe

I had intended to write personally to Robert S. Lyle '29 to answer his dismal account of the Dartmouth football season (December Letters), but instead of sending him the season's-end standings of all Dartmouth teams, I choose to encourage all alumni to witness wherein sometimes our logic fails us as it did with Lyle.

First off, Lyle failed to acknowledge that Joe Yukica has perhaps the most beautiful wife who ever cheered a husband through the thick and thin of coaching. Every good Dartmouth man knows that probably the most valuable asset an A.B. in the Ivy League can bestow is the ability to choose a beautiful woman as wife.

The second error lettered Lyle made was to point out that in his senior year the varsity lost to Harvard, Yale, Brown and Princeton. It is only fair to point out that one of the teams they beat was Norwich.

The third error: if you lose the first games of the season, you will lose them all, according to Lyle's logic. The record shows that Joe Yukica's team ended thus: lost to powerful Cornell 7-10; beat Yale 39-19; took Columbia (and Columbia should give up football as did the University of Chicago) 39-13; tied Brown 21-21; and creamed Princeton 28-6.

What we will never know is how many rabid Dartmouth alumni with money and a useless A.B. persuaded the youthful director of athletics in Memorial Gymnasium to defame Dartmouth and the majestic Joe Yukica.

Lyme Center, NeW Hampshire

World War Recruits

AL Hormel missed the point in several of the comments he made in his November letter on World War II officers.

Granted that the U.S. Army had 15 cavalry regiments in 1939. We did not have the network of roads available for military use throughout the 48 states that we have today.

Also, most of the officers in the First Marine Division on Guadalcanal in 1942 were Reserves - many of them Dartmouth graduates who received their commissions through the Platoon Leaders Program with Joe McNutt's help. Dartmouth and Boston College were the only places in New England during the 1930s from which the Marines could recruit.

Boston, Massachusetts