1961

Save the weekend of October 30 November 1 for our next mini-reunion, says class president Vic Rich. That's Dartmouth Night weekend, the Yale game, and a traditional time to go back to Hanover.

Former class president and mini-reunion chair Dave Prewitt was already hard at Work on the details at this mid-March writing. Hope many of you, especially from New York and New England, can add that weekend to your schedules now.

Sam Bell is now writing his own chapter of "Profiles in Courage." He is advocating a state income tax in Florida, one of the few states left that doesn't have one, and it's a stance that would be political suicide for most Florida politicians, according to a recent report in the Miami Herald. Sam is chairman of the appropriations committee of the Florida House of Representatives, and is already slated to be Speaker in 1991-1992. The Herald report said Bell "isn't shy about saying that he believes an income tax is inevitable . . . ." He says the state is facing "big-time financial trouble" $53 billion more in needs than state and local governments are projected to spend.

Bell says the state has failed in the past to face up to its costs. "We've been sticking our heads in the sand for so long that it's become our permanent posture. What I'm afraid of is that the public in general is not yet fully informed of the level of potential crisis. I can't believe that thinking people, knowing what we know, would want this to happen to us."

The Herald article continues: "He can afford such heresy, his colleagues say. Bell, first elected to the House in 1974, has never faced serious opposition back home. And while his constituents are generally regarded as more conservative than Bell, it's said they grant him independence because he's found his way into powerful positions that work to his district's advantage. He served as majority leader and Rules Committee chairman before becoming budget chief in 1985. Bell is considered a master of the legislative system, who loves politics as much as he enjoys motorcycle racing, sailing and scuba diving. He's one of the House's brightest members and also one of its most aggressive, feared as much as he is admired but always respected."

The article does not mention what readers of this column already know that Sam Bell intends one day to run for governor of Florida. That's why his stand is so courageous.

I ran into another of the more politically attuned members of our class Dick Beattie who is part of the Democratic leadership in exile from Washington during a Republican presidency.

I was in Hanover for a planning session for Class Officers Weekend, which already will have occurred by the time you read this, and Dick was in town to see his daughter. We just happened to run into each other in the lobby of the Hanover Inn on a snowy Sunday morning when I already knew I was facing a bus trip to Boston because planes would never fly out of Lebanon that day. Does he intend to return to Washington if the Democrats recapture the White House in 1988? In a word, yes. Dick allowed that as Tower Commission member Ed Muskie worked on his aspects of the report, there was a considerable amount of communication with other Democratic leaders, such as Cyrus Vance. Vance and Muskie of course were secretaries of state under President Carter, while Dick was general counsel of HEW. You'll need to spend more time talking with Dick than I had before my bus departed, but apparently the Tower Commission report as presented was considerably toned down from the wording that Muskie intended to use.

Lately, Dick has been trying to serve on the school board for the city of New York. That job is made complex by dozens of local school districts in the city, each with its own superintendent and board. It was a product of the movement toward "local control" of the schools in the past two decades, but it makes writing citywide school policy difficult indeed.

Then the Vermont Transit bus came. The bus is a shuttle to White River, but incredibly, there are regularly scheduled nonstop shuttles from there to Logan Airport, and even amidst heavy snow, the bus made good time.

The snow was the first in several weeks for Hanover, which was enjoying a mild spell during the last week in February, with temperature in the 40s.

Class treasurer Bob Rosier reports that as of mid-March, 301 classmates had sent in their class dues, a chunk of which goes to pay for the 1961 Fellows program, and a chunk of which pays for your subscription to this magazine. Have you sent in your dues yet?

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