LETTERS

Sore Winners

After reading Ken Johnson's fine piece on the fifth-down game's 50th anniversary ["The Forfeit," October], it's irresistible to comment upon three remarkable references to that bygone situation that were made during the 1990 grid season. In Michigan a referee belatedly apologized to the Spartans for missing a last-play pass-interference call in their narrow loss to archrival Michigan State. That humble act was a direct echo of referee Red Friesell's 1940 contrition, which begat the chain of events that led to Cornell forfeiting its 7-3 win over Dartmouth.

Even more eerily, and much more sadly, the 1990 Colorado Buffaloes were erroneously granted a fifth down in their bigintra-league game against Missouri. The Buffs cashed in with a touchdown as the clock ran out, much as Cornell had 50 years before. Since instant-replay can't overrule a ref's call in a college game (thank goodness!), the score, which was Colorado 33 and Missouri 31, was allowed to stand. Now, surely, Colorado would yield of its own volition.

Ah, but here's where the story diverges darkly from the noble history of Dartmouth/Cornell, 1940. Although the Missouri chancellor publicly appealed for justice, his Colorado counterpart remained mum, and sheepishly allowed Coach Bill McCartney to keep the undeserved win.

The Colorado case is, unquestionably, rife with commentary on our times. Win at all costs; never give back what you've got; money for nothing—these are all adages of the age. (And don't for a moment think the tainted "W" wasn't worth thousands to the Buffaloes.) It's the rare sportsman who rises above contemporary standards to do the truly right thing. We can only hope that kin within the Dartmouth family, when faced with fifth downs on the football field or elsewhere, take their cue from Cornell, not Colorado. After all, it's a lesson closer to home.

Oh, yes: one final 50th-anniversary occurrence with historical resonance. On the final play of this season's Dartmouth-Cornell contest, the Big Red again needed a touchdown to win and again surged toward the Dartmouth goal line. But when the clock went to 00:00, Mike Grant was hauled down at the three and Dartmouth won by five. As Colorado might observe, life ain't fair.

New York, New York

Bob Sullivan is an editor for Spoils Illustrated.

it is one thing to be an award-winning publication, quite another to be a prophet.

Conceivably, your hope that the Ivy League will resurrect sportsmanship in college athletics will happen. But I doubt it. Big-time teams are as immune to gallantry as today's tennis players are to white flannels, wooden racquets—and congratulating their opponents on a good shot.

Hanover, New Hampshire

Taxpayer Holdup

I enjoyed the excerpts from an interview with William Seidman '43, T '44, in the September issue, but found the accompanying cartoon puzzling. In the S&L mess as I understand it, bankers have held up not depositors but taxpayers. As a group, savers have been net winners, earning above-market interest rates, risk free, from insolvent S&Ls trying to fund operations with new deposits, or from banks trying to compete with such S&Ls.

Oxford, England

Peter Pan Deconstructed

If the "Syllabus" section of your magazine chronicles the march of knowledge at the College, Professor Marianne Hirsch's piece on "Mothers and Daughters" in the September issue is revealing.

Perhaps because "gender affects what we are and what we know," I had never reread "Little Snow White" "to see the queen not as an evil stepmother but as the creative female artist who, rebelling against the sacrifices that motherhood entails, schemes to preserve in herself what the culture values—youth and beauty."

This revelation puts the Brothers Grimm in a whole new light. Now I see that the wicked stepmother in Cinderella is really a bold female entrepreneur seeking to advance her daughters in a phallocentric kingdom which values Cinderella's meekness over the daughters' assertiveness. Rapunzel, of course, is a tale of reproductive rights. And the mother's abandonment of Hansel and Gretel in order to save food, I now understand, is best read as an indictment of Reaganism and Thatcherism.

Such is the richness and power of what Professor Hirsch calls feminist revision—"finding speech and meaning where we believed there was silence and absence."

Hamilton, New York

Boulding Data

Congratulations on your Summer issue—a handsome job overall, and I particularly appreciated the concept and execution of Vox Clamantis in Deserto (could have used a good deal more data on Elise Boulding).

Englewood, New Jersey

Knee-Jerk Stereotype

I was absolutely shocked that in 1990 a person could equate sexual preference with courage, as John D. Goode '43 did concerning Valedictorian Michael Lowenthal '90 ["Letters," September]. One would hope that this kind of stereotyping and narrowmindedness would not be perpetrated in a college community.

So that the suspicious Mr. Goode not question my motives, I am not gay, instead merely a person who feels our society will never thrive as long as this type of uninformed judgmental kneejerk attitude is present.

Sausalito, California

Shaking the Lies

I recently attended the annual meeting of the Council of the Smithsonian Institution. My fellow members—most of them quite influential and wellknown in their fields—come from Europe, Latin America, Australia, and the United States, and represent a spectrum of academic disciplines or government agencies, as well as the arts. Sadly, I must report that every time my affiliation with Dartmouth came up, various of these people would shake their heads and lament what they had read about the school in the press, commenting on what a "terrible place" this must be.

Of course I told them the truth: that the real Dartmouth wasn't hostile to ethnic or religious minorities, women, or gay students; that we were a diverse community whose very belief in the principle of free speech permitted The Dartmouth Review's excesses; that in terms of academic standards and scholarship, Dartmouth was a far more impressive college in 1990 than it was when I first arrived in 1972.

The problem is: nobody believed a word of it.

The perception of a place can play a key role in defining its future, and Dartmouth desperately needs to correct its public image. It must distance itself from the lies told about it—and that won't happen if alumni, faculty, and students who care about the school remain as passive as most of us have been. Make no mistake: those who consistently slander and embarrass Dartmouth (as opposed to those who honestly and constructively criticize it) damage the good name of us all. I'm tired of making excuses for a school that should need no apology.

Cornish Flat, New Hampshire

Michael Dorris is an adjunct professor ofanthropology and author of The Broken Cord, a book about fetal alcohol syndromethat won the National Book Critics CircleAward for best non-fiction book 0f 1989.

I divide my time between Canada and California, and it's sobering to realize what sort of public image our alma mater has outside the northeastern U.S. Most of this continent, relying on national media outlets, sees the College primarily as a sort of macabre wax museum of egregious racial and sexual harassment.

I have little doubt that the antics of the Dartmouth Review are largely responsible for this. It would please me greatly if they voluntarily renamed their little rag to something that doesn't reflect on Mother Dartmouth (New England Nazi News, for example, would be fair labeling). But that doesn't seem likely; and, as a journalist myself, I find the idea of censorship abhorrent.

So here's an alternative suggestion: how about renaming the College to something the Review children would never care to associate themselves with? After all, they usurped the "Dartmouth" name because of its mythical connotations of a conservative Golden Age. I say let them have it. Although I've always been fond of the old Earl of Dartmouth, I'd gladly trade in my sheepskin for a diploma from Sojourner Truth College, Martin Luther King University, the Emma Goldman Institute, Eugene V. Debs College, Nelson Mandela University, or the Elizabeth Cady Stanton Academy. Or perhaps, in deference to alumni who have long sought a prominent "Indian symbol" Russell Means College.

Montreal, Quebec

It is understandable that the College is experiencing increasing difficulty attracting minority faculty and students. How can it be otherwise when the publicity is so negative, the atmosphere in Hanover apparently so poisonous, and the Hopkins Institute ever ready to inflame those alumni whom the Review doesn't reach? I have little desire to be associated with such a place or to offer any encouragement to my three children to attend their father's alma mater. Sad.

Minneapolis, Minnesota

Those of us who are tired of this open sewer on campus should support the voices of decency by increasing our giving to the College where possible.

Fortunately, after ten years of hypocrisy at both the Dartmouth and the national levels, people are beginning to see the Review for what it is.

Lenox, Massachusetts

Cringing Alumni

The present effrontery of The Dartmouth Review must make every loyal alumnus cringe. How is it that this scurrilous publication is allowed to continue with the use of the name Dartmouth?

In my view every possible means must now be found to cause this publication to cease and desist from the use of our College's good name.

Woodbridge, Connecticut

Regarding the passage from Hitler's Mein Kampf—as a publisher of newsletters, I can't honestly believe that any phrase could be "slipped in" a document before it went to print. If indeed an unknown staff member is responsible, where were the editors? And the proofreaders? Give me a break. I ache for the Dartmouth student body, and the alumni.

The editors of The Dartmouth Review are crying foul because they are being criticized for an outrageous passage that they claim no responsibility for, but which is consistent with the kind of attack they have made on minorities for a decade. The Dartmouth Review cannot run from what it is, a publication that has made a name for itself libeling minorities.

President James Freedman is to be commended for standing up to The Dartmouth Review and calling upon the Dartmouth students and alumni to confront The Review and hold it responsible for its scandalous attacks on minorities.

Cambridge, Massachusetts

Perhaps now Dartmouth Review contributors will evaluate their investment in preserving conservative values.

Have you "saved" Dartmouth from Liberalism? Or have you only tarnished our good name and reputation?

What will it cost to restore our pride as men and women of Dartmouth?

Guilford, Connecticut

Was there a saboteur? Who is he? The president of the Review resigned. In addition, three of the staff resigned. There is no hint yet that any one of these was the saboteur. I rather like Mr. Buckley's hypothesis: "It is possible that the editor in chief himself took those lines from Hitler; was frightened by what he had done and pretended it was done by someone else.

"Well, that is a hypothesis worth a moment's attention. It does struggle, however, against the odds." What are the odds?

Then Mr. Buckley writes, "Mr. Pritchett thinks he knows who the malefactor is." If Mr. Pritchett knows, why does he not come out with it? If he knows, is there a need for an investigation by the College or B'nai Brith?

Montgomery, Alabama

Commandeered College

The resignation of Music Professor William Cole reminds me of that day in the spring of 1969 when a group of equally misguided students commandeered Parkhurst Hall under the guise of freedom of expression of their opposition to the Vietnam War. The College did not pussyfoot around with these students. They were warned that they were disrupting the normal functioning of the College and were told to cease and desist. Those who did not were arrested and removed from the campus. I would submit that forcing a wellrespected professor to resign and causing hundreds of qualified high-school students to refrain from applying to Dartmouth are actions at least as disruptive as the storming of Parkhurst. I urge a similarly strong response by the College.

Robert M. Leftkowits'69 Palo Alto, California

The Real Dartmouth

While I acknowledge The Review's right to free speech, to the 21 staff members, I say, you can use your megaphone but you can't speak for all of us. Indeed, The Review's ten-year lease on 221 -year-old Dartmouth has ended. I'm taking back our school and restoring its image.

Here is my message to the nation and to the class of 1995: I'm a Jew and I love Dartmouth, I'm a liberal and I love Dartmouth, I'm a tour guide in the spring, and I hope to see you there.

Hanover, New Hampshire

Lowenthal's Advice

Contrary to all the letters published by the Alumni Magazine concerning Michael Lowenthal's valedictory address:

1) Lowenthal had asked the College, faculty, and alumni to recognize and accept social and cultural diversity. This is a perfectly sensible and certainly much-needed piece of advice not only at Dartmouth College but also on the planet. At Arizona State University, where I teach, President Lattie Coor said essentially the same thing in his ceremonial address. (No angry letters were received as a result of his statement.)

2) Lowenthal criticized those organizations and groups which had actively continued cultural stereotypingsomething very parent, teacher, and professor should also criticize, if social and cultural maturity is to be considered a sensible goal.

Lowenthal's presentation and delivery of the Valedictory address were respectful but strong, intelligent, and yet, contrary to all the versions I'd read, emotionally muted. I know, because my own daughter is in the same class as the speaker, and so I was present and heard the address—applauding Mr. Lowenthal for his ideas, sincerity, courage, and development of his argument.

Tempe, Arizona

Although I was not gay while I attended Dartmouth, I was aware of some of the discrimination and homophobia that existed at that time. Since then I have come out as a lesbian, and wonder what my Dartmouth experience would have been like had I personally experienced that hatred. Perhaps my memories would not be so fond.

To those who feel homosexuality is an aberration, may I say that not only does it include approximately ten percent of the population, but it has also been around since recorded history. It is not considered an illness by the American Psychiatric Association, and homosexuals are no less mentally healthy than the rest of the population (barring, of course, stress-related problems from having to be "closeted" and having to deal with homophobic hatred).

So I applaud Mike for having the courage to stand up before his peers and be himself. May he serve as an example for those who follow—gay or straight.

Michael Lowenthal's valedictory speech last spring was of tremendous importance nationwide precisely because of his openness about his sexuality. Anyone who belittles his candor, as R. Hugh Uhlmann '37 did ["Letters," September] fails to understand anything about being gay or lesbian either at Dartmouth or anywhere else in our society.

As a gay undergraduate I was excluded from the "great traditions" of the "Dartmouth family." It was, and (judging from the lack of sensitive and accurate coverage in this magazine) remains a "family" more concerned with the narrow and prejudiced ideals of an imaginary past than the diverse qualities of its actual members.

Brooklyn, New York

Ford Recalled

Many of us who are lucky enough to know Bob Sullivan think that the author of "The Real Story behind the Lower Forty Shooting, Angling and Inside Straight Club" [September], rather than Corey Ford, is in fact the funniest writer ever to work for the College!

Framingham, Massachusetts

I frequendy drove Corey in his welltraveled Land Rover to different birdhunting spots. He would pu Tober through his paces, working woodcock and grouse. We never hunted; the sport, was the simple pleasure of Tiber's art and the woods. On one occasion, to my great regret, Corey decided we should hunt. The editor of Field & Stream was visiting and Corey thought the time ripe for me to try my hand at a woodcock. It takes but little imagination to understand how I felt as I drove these two notable sportsmen into the hills of New Hampshire. The Land Rover, the English setter, and the two engraved and oiled double-barreled shotguns only deepened my awe and increased my anxiety.

My fears were justified when, after an afternoon of unsuccessful hunting, I headed the Land Rover down a mapleshrouded dirt road. Just as we topped a slight rise, a grouse waltzed out into the road. The four-wheel-drive differential clipped the head of the bird off with a barely audible thud.

I brought the Land Rover to a stop. The silence settled in and with it the realization that I had just mauled a sporting bird in the most unsporting way in the presence of the editor of Field & Stream and the father of the "Lower Forty."

Corey finally let me off the hook. His face lit up into an elfin, almost devilish grin. "Well, Hap," he said,"we weren't doing very well, but I'm not sure things were that desperate."

Corey's dog Cider once gave me the most withering look dog ever gave to man. Having bragged about pheasant hunting in South Dakota, I was enlisted to drive Corey and Cider through the hills of New Hampshire in what has to be man's most unequal expenditure of gas and time in relation to gunpowder. But one day Cider did come to a point; like Col. Cobb's dog, Cider never made a mistake. Corey nodded to me to take the first shot; the bird rose; I fired my first and last shot in three years of hunting in New Hampshire, and missed. Cider, I swear, put his forepaw on his hip and looked at me over his shoulder, then looked at Corey and sadly shook his head. I am sure Cider intended to drive the jeep home in my place.

Mattapoisett, Massachusetts

Would the captains of Colorado andMissouri be as forgiving as Cornell'sWalter Matuszak and Dartmouth'sLoius Young Jr. '41?