Presents Accounted For

Hubris-Free Leap

WHAT AN EXTRAORDINARY AND positive surprise!

Your special issue on "Dartmouth's Gifts to the World" [April] was fascinating and in some ways nostalgic, in other ways informative and in no way polemic. So the edition, for many, will be recognized as a "Great Leap Forward" and retained as a reference work.

I guess it was George Will who commented: "Real hubris lies in thinking we can dispense with lessons from the giants of other generations on whose shoulders we stand." Your special issue is a reminder of our constantly emerging heritage and its importance to the alumni and the world.

And maybe the edition also supports the conclusion of Irving Kristol: "There ismo reason to think (not the slightest shred of evidence) that the organized, collective intelligence of professors has anything whatsoever to contribute to the solving of our social, economic, and political or moral problems."

You have compiled a readable variety of contributions from those with whom we can claim association.

UWCHLAND PENNSYLVANIA

White Lie

I NOTE WITH GREAT AMUSEMENT that the Alumni Magazine now uses a "harmless" comic-book approach to foist on alumni the latest in political correctness. In the Special Issue for this April, we see nine alumni celebrated with cartoon caricatures honoring their achievements: three women, three black males, and three white males. Since white males made up 99 percent of alumni until Dartmouth went coed in 1973, it is not only statistically impossible but statistically dishonest to portray white males as having carried out only 33.3 percent of the noteworthy achievements. This propaganda is so clumsy that it reminds me of the Big Lie typical of twentieth-century tyrannies. I wonder how much more of this crap you expect white male alumni to put up with.

SHERMAN OAKS, CALIFORNIA

Bronzing Dartmouth

TWO SUGGESTIONS. FIRST, WHY not a slimmed-down reprint of the special issue for prospective Dartmouth applicants, to be paid for by Admissions and distributed to them. Young people are impressed by such articles re Dartmouth.

Second, why not a bronze plaque on Reed Hall describing the first diagnostic X-Ray? We have one noting the start of the U.S. petroleum industry on the wall of Crosby.

While we are at it, why not bronze plaques all over campus, on classroom buildings and dorms commemorating prominent alumni and their accomplishments? One on Parkhurst on the founding of Tuck. One on Rockefeller on his being V.P., Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, Dr. Seuss, etc. Two dozen would do it.

HANOVER, NEW HAMPSHIRE

Stretching a Dozen

CHOOSING A BAKER'S DOZEN OF Dartmouth's best literature is a daunting task. Your choices were wonderful.

If only the list could have been longer! Surely the next items would include What Makes Sammy Run? and The Disenchanted by Budd Schulberg '36, Relation by Philip Booth '47, TheSubject Was Roses by Frank D. Gilroy '50, which received the Pulitzer Prize for drama in 1965, and The Problem ofSlavery in Western Culture by David Brion Davis '50, which received the Pulitzer Prize for general non-fiction in 1967.

HANOVER, NEW HAMPSHIRE

The Cat in the Bag

FROM WHERE I SIT, THE STORY OF how Ted Geisel's The Cat in the Hat came into being is especially noteworthy—as pure mythology. (Where did the story come from?) At the time of its creation, as an editor in the high school department of Houghton Mifflin Company, I was in on the conception of this children's classic, mostly because of my Dartmouth degree. Here's what I remember:

William E. Spaulding was then head of the educational division at Houghton. Three years later, in 1957, he became president of the company. In the early fifties Bill spent much of his time with the elementary editors, who were developing the McKee Reading Series. This series was already competing with the Scott Foresman books featuring Dick and Jane. Bill told me that he had challenged Ted to write a children's book using only a limited number of words—those that Professor Paul McKee and his colleagues had found suitable for beginning readers.

Ted came to Boston to talk further about Bill's challenge. Bill invited me to lunch at Locke-Ober's with them, and of course I was honored to meet the famous Dr. Seuss. Ted was kind enough to say he remembered my brother in the class of '26; I don't remember the conversation otherwise, but publisher-author luncheons were always great fun.

The upshot: Ted was assigned an editor of the McKee series, Mary Parson, to work with him. She was so creative that I'm sure she made contributions to The Cat in the Hat quite aside from checking to make sure that Ted stayed within the word limits. Our agreement with Random House was that we would publish only the educational edition of The Cat in the Hat. In other words, we would sell it only to schools. The so-called "trade edition," to be marketed in book stores, was to be exclusively with Random.

So we published The Cat in the Hat, along with similar children's books I think, for schools using the McKee Readers. It's my recollection, alas, that the sales were not worth the trouble. The trade edition, of course, took off like a rocket.

You can see why I don't buy the John Hersey-Bennett Cerf version you published. Good names, to be sure. I doubt those worthy guys had much if any interest in the books written with a suitable vocabulary for first graders.

GRANTHAM, NEW HAMPSHIRE

Juvenile Lit

CONGRATULATIONS ON THE splendid special issue, but aren't you being a little unfair to Samuel Lorenzo Knapp 1804?

You write, with apparent emphasis, that in his Lectures on AmericaLiterature Knapp "failed to note the work of such budding authors as Longfellow, Poe, Holmes, and Hawthorne." In 1829, when Knapp's book was published (and he probably wrote it somewhat before that), Poe and Holmes were only 20. Poe had not even entered West Point. Holmes, a Harvard undergraduate until June of that year, did achieve quick popularity with a publication of "Old Ironsides"—a year after Knapp's book appeared. Emerson, a 26-year-old minister, was known for his sermons, but his first book didn't appear until 1836. Longfellow, 22, just back from language study in Europe, didn't publish his first book until 1832. It is true that Hawthorne, 25, had published one novel, Fanshawe in 1828. But it appeared anonymously, and was virtually unnoticed.

As things were, the American literary scene was so barren when Knapp wrote his work that, according to The Oxford Companion to AmericanLiterature, he "padded his book with chapters on 'The Naval Character of Our Country' and other rather remote literary marerial."

LAKEVILLE, CONNECTICUT

YOU WERE A LITTLE HEAVY ON Samuel Lorenzo Knopp 1804 in the fact that the budding authors he failed to note all were 26 or younger at the publication of Lectures.

NEWARK, DELAWARE

Look It Up

I ENJOYED THE SPECIAL ISSUE ON Dartmouth's contributions to everything, but despite your tongue-incheek disclaimer on page 4, I'm afraid that it might seem as if we lack a certain self-confidence in ourselves to make such a public display of these achievements.

I was especially interested in the piece about Philip Gove and Webster'sThird International Dictionary, because it reminded me of an article by Dwight Macdonald in The New Yorker that ripped it up and down and sideways for its cavalier treatment of English. By a strange coincidence, The Wall Street Journal published on April 20,1994 a review of a biography of Macdonald that reinforces my impression from having read the article about Gove and the Dictionaiy. The concluding paragraph of the review says, "All his life, Macdonald took ideas seriously and fought for them with wit and determination. In today's political-chat world of too many infarcted academics, logorrheic talk shows and soundbite sensibilities, he would have been a 'giant.'" Among more important issues, Macdonald excoriated the W3 for such things as circular references ("biweekly: see semiweekly; semiweekly: see biweekly").

The author of your piece acknowledges that Gove's leadership was controversial: "W3 dropped earlier biographical and geographical appendixes, and, to save even more space, introduced a single-phrase defining technique supplemented by usage examples." Macdonald was particularly outraged that quotations from Dwight Eisenhower were used to illustrate usage. Such usage examples illustrated the change in philosophy of the dictionary, from an authority to a mere reporter of how people spoke, "correctly" or other-wise. He also lamented the deletion of the helpful "pointing linger" graphics. These are the tilings I remember from having read his article probably 33 years ago, and never again since.

The reason for this letter is merely to indicate that Philip Gove did not receive universal acclamation for W3, and that, in my opinion, the shift of the dictionary from being an authority to becoming only a reporter, giving no firm guidance, lessens the ability of the language to communicate ideas precisely.

There also appeared in The New Yorker subsequent to the publication of W3 a cartoon showing a man standing at the reception desk of Merriam-Webster. The receptionist is saying, "I'm sorry, Dr. Gove ain't in."

CLEARWATER BEACH, FLORIDA

Editing Sins

YOU AND YOUR STAFF HAVE DONE a magnificent job in creating the April issue. My brother and I are greatly impressed.

However, we couldn't help but wonder where you attained information relative to our esteemed father-Professor-Cellist-Artist-Author-Tator-Minister-Skipper Roy Bullard Chamberlin Sr., who for 35 years served as chaplain of Dartmouth College in addition to his full professorship. Though it is true he was raised a Methodist, he was a Congregationalist minister who came originally to Hanover to The Church of Christ at Dartmouth College prior to his invitation by President Ernest Martin Hopkins. He always spelled his name without the second "a". And the Dartmouth Bible took 15 years to complete, not 12, all right?

But thank you for your efforts. ROY BULLARD CHAMBERLIN '38

NEW BERLIN, NEW YORK

UNION CITY, CALIFORNIA

Serious Paddling

YOUR SPECIAL ISSUE WAS OUT-standing! It was funny, sad, engaging, and very informative. There certainly have been a lot of remarkable alumni as well as a lot of other good guys who have made their way in life.

However, under the Dartmouth Canoe Club you forgot two noteworthy events. In 1965 an expedition under the sponsorship of the Canoe Club paddled the Danube from the Black Forest to the Black Sea.

And yet another group—six Dartmouth students and four Britishers—kayakeD from Shimonoseki, Japan, up the Iuland Sea and back to Tokyo. No mean feat; 1,100 miles in three months.

GLEN ARBOR, MICHIGAN

lAM HONORED TO SEE THAT MY 1933 circumnavigation of New England in a double kayak is listed in the pantheon of alumni accomplishments.

But the "small group of Ledyard paddlers" included just Pete Knight '32 and Harold Putnam '37.

The trip of nearly 2,000 miles in 66 days did not seem especially noteworthy to me at the time (I was 17!), but in retrospect it was a long way in a short time!

A Wah-Hoo-Wah for Pete Knight, who conceived the idea and led the voyage.

VERO BEACH, FLORIDA

Add Thadd

YOUR APRIL 1994 SPECIAL ISSUE was impressive, not only because of the many contributions Dartmouth alumni have made over the years but also the manner in which they were presented. Not surprisingly I took special note of the article on Thaddeus Stevens and compliment you for your coverage of his Reconstruction leadership (one correction: the Reconstruction Act was enacted in 1876, not 1868).

Naturally, I'm partisan, but I'd like to add Stevens to the statement on page 42 that "only Webster can compare with Salmon P. Chase 1826 as Dartmouth's most brilliant statesman and political leader."

CLAREMONT CALIFORNIA

Palmer is editor of the Thaddeus Stevens Papers.

Snow Job

YOU, LIKE MANY OTHERS, HAVE been taken in by the Woodstock Chamber of Commerce ["Gifts to the World," "America's First Ski Tow," April],

Bunny Bertram was never captain of a Dartmouth ski team. From what I saw of his talent, he barely knew which end of his skis to point down hill. The script that got him into the Ski Hall of Fame is a masterpiece of hyperbole created by the Woodstock Chamber of Commerce to promote Woodstock.

From the Lake Placid Club in New York to Hilltop in California, there were a great many areas active in the development of siding. Skiing probably could have made it without Woodstock!

A 90-mile-an-hour rope tow? Surely you jest! Stand on a curbstone sometime and watch the cars go by at 30. Skiers were hard enough put to cope with the terrain at Suicide Six to make it at speeds less than a tenth of 90.

Woodstock's financial backing was adequate to support this very active and imaginative Chamber of Commerce. Bertram's principal and serendipitous accomplishment was to have been one of its assignments. For another, note the copy of a bronze plaque, proclaiming that "here is where skiers were hauled uphill for the first time." Albeit on toboggans, Hilltop was hauling skiers uphill in 1910—not to go into detail on the many European systems in operations at the time.

Otherwise, you have created an issue of the DAM that is honestly constructive and—so far as I know—a format that is completely unique. It must have been an enjoyable project, knowing that you were providing an inspiration, an encouragement and a challenge to thousands of Dartmouths to come!

SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA

THE PHRASE, "BUNNY BERTRAM, former captain of the Dartmouth ski team" ("Gifts to the World," April), is a bit misleading. In Bunny's and my day, there was no ski team as such. He was captain of the winter sports team, which also included speed skating, figure skating, and snowshoe racing, in addition to the four traditional "ski" events, downhill, slalom, cross-country, and jumping. Bunny was a snowshoer, not a skier (until after college and then not a competitor).

As I recall, he was also on the cross-country (running) team. He startled us, I think it was a year after graduation, by running and finishing the Boston Marathon. I doubt any Dartmouth man had done that before.

TEQUESTA, FLORIDA

Dr. Bob's Legacy

ALTHOUGH IT IS YOUR POLICY not to print anonymous letters, I would hope you could make an exception in this case. As a recovering alcoholic, I was happy to see that you recognized Dr. Robert Smith '02, co-founder of Alcoholics Anonymous, in your recent Special Issue on "Dartmouth's Gifts to the World." While Dr. Bob (as he is fondly called by members of A.A.) may not be as well-known as someone like Dr. Seuss, his gift to the world certainly deserves as much recognition and praise. Indeed, more than two million people in at least 14 countries have miraculously recovered from an otherwise hopeless condition, just by following the 12-step program that Dr. Bob helped create.

Alcoholism is a serious disease. It destroys families, careers, and even takes lives. But thanks to Dr. Bob and co-founder Bill Wilson, there is a solution. It is a simple program, yet when followed it works—even in the most hopeless cases. The Fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous offers suffering and recovering alcoholics an opportunity to meet and to share their experience, strength, and hope. Thanks, Dr. Bob!

U.S.A.

Withdraw, Pardner

YOU WILL, NO DOUBT, RECEIVE many letters praising the April issue of the Alumni Magazine, and rightly so. But you will also get some that point out omissions. Mine is this: On page 39 under heading "Sitcoms" you state that Harry Ackerman '35 sired "Gunsmoke" on both radio and television. But don't you know who created it for both mediums? That Colorado cowboy, John L. Meston '37, my roommate for all four years.

BOCA GRANDE, FLORIDA

Gee, Thanks

EVEN THOUGH STOLEN FROM Yankee, does not the special issue belong on the list of Dartmouth's gifts to the world?

Our "tennis reunion" of last year for 90-year-olds also qualifies, I believe. The round-robin format of our "tennis reunion" offers a delightful mix of competition and camaraderie.

SOUTH HARPSWELL MAINE

Good Mood

WE HAD A LOT OF FUN WITH "Mood Music" in the early forties, with a basic big-band sound, great jazz soloists, and a steady rhythm. As the field widened, it featured heavy strings, pretty bland arrangements, and a style that developed into something now called "elevator music."

I certainly appreciate die Alumni Magazine noting the source and distinction between the two styles.

When I graduated from Dartmouth as an economics major in 1933 I found a complete lack of demand for my services, drifted into music, and luckily found a home there.

Los ANGELES, CALIFORNIA

Think Yellow

IT'S GREAT TO SEE SO WELL Illustrated the "sigificant positive contributions to society" we were told we are supposed to make.

A minor correction: commercial telephone listings by subject in Australia changed from pink pages to yellow pages about 20 years ago.

HOBART AUSTRALIA