DARTMOUTH UNDYING

1817

President James Monroe comes to Hanover. He visits John Wheelock's widow, who nursed him during the Revolutionary War. The Supreme Court has yet to decide the Dartmouth College Case, so the tactful Monroe pays his respects to the presidents both of Dartmouth College and Dartmouth University.

1872

In an effort to annoy stodgy faculty, the senior class invites a radical poet named Walt Whitman to speak at Commencement. His address receives considerably less notice than his attire. Miss Kate Sanborn, sister of the library's benefactor, is struck by the 200-pound poet's chest hair. She recalls later: "He appeared on the platform wearing a flannel shirt, square-cut neck, disclosing a hirsute covering that would have done credit to a grizzly bear."

1912

"Dartmouth is more like Yale than any other college," President William Howard Taft tells a Hanover crowd. "I hope that you will consider this a compliment," adds the Yale alumnus.

1923

William Jennings Bryan denounces the theory of evolution before a largely skeptical Dartmouth audience. The Dartmouth summarizes his speech in a phrase: "American colleges are giving too much attention to the ages of rocks and not enough to the Rock of Ages." Dean of Freshmen E. Gordon Bill later reports fewer failures in the evolution course, which is required of all students. "The laugh is on Mr. Bryan," he says.

1941

Baseball legend Babe Ruth declares the Hanover Country Club to be "too hilly."

1959

Former British Prime Minister Clement Atlee observes to a Dartmouth audience that bathtubs in the United States are two feet shorter than in England. "There are a lot of things I can't explain about America," the statesman concludes.

1967

Judy Garland arrives with biographer Tom Green '60. She plays pool with the brothers in Alpha Theta and listens to them sing Dartmouth songs around the piano.

1980

Gerald Ford speaks before Professor Laurence Radway's government class. While making a point, Ford knocks over his microphone. As if he has had practice in the maneuver, the former president catches the mike and, without a single pause, continues his lecture.

1989

Supreme Court Chief Justice William Rehnquist recalls the nineteenth-century attempt to convert Dartmouth into a university. He says: "Some issues never go away, I gather."

"Dartmouth's all right," Louis Armstrong told student interviewers during one of his three visits to the College. "Some of my best fans are here," he added diplomatically. Not every celebrity has arrived as smoothly on the Hanover Plain.