Shrimp, Sirloin, Sass

The Dartmouth Review turns 25 and throws a black-tie birthday bash in New York City.

ON APRIL 21 The DartmouthReview hosted a gala celebrating its 25th anniversary. The party was in New York City, in the library of the Union League Club, and more than 180 Dartmouth alums and friends showed up. There were old firebrands—some as old as William F. Buckley Jr., now 81, who came with his wife, Pat—and young upstarts alike. At 6 p.m., though, as the party officially began, it was just the young upstarts. Daniel Linsalata '07, the current editor, stood by a table filled with placgcards on which the names of the guests had been calligraphically inscribed. Most had paid $250 a seat or $2,500 to host a table.

The night was a black-tie celebration of standoffs with liberal politics in general and the College administration in particular. Asked if he had participated in any notable showdowns yet, Linsalata answered, "Not so far, but I really just started a few weeks ago." Still, he said he was optimistic that some trouble and maybe even a lawsuit were right around the corner. Alston Ramsay '04 was there fairly early, too. Ramsay, a former editor, did have a war story: He recounted his tangle with the school over a policy forbidding the distribution of literature within the dorms. He's now an associate editor at The NationalReview. But The Dartmouth Review still can't be distributed door-to-door.

Stefan Beck '04 and James Panero '98 arrived early as well, with copies of their book, The Dartmouth Review Pleads Innocent:Twenty-Five Years of Being Threatened, Impugned,Vandalized, Sued, Suspended, and Bittenat the Ivy League's Most Controversial ConservativeNewspaper. It's a collection of reviews and reporting, and includes many of the papers highlights, or lowlights, depending on one's opinion of the periodical. Both Panero and Beck now work at The New Criterion, an arts journal.

More and older guests arrived, and the talk and drink started to flow in the library, which is full of strange memorabilia. There is, for instance, a 12,000-piece lead soldier collection on display. Bob Flanigan '87, a former president of the paper, stood by a framed photograph of John Brown, complete with an actual lock of the abolitionist's hair. In Browns dour shadow, Flanigan recalled the time he pulled up to the Green in a truck with eight other Review staffers and a 20-pound sledge hammer, intent on what his little group famously dubbed "campus beautification," or, as others saw it, the mean-spirited demolition of shanties built to protest apartheid. Three campus trials and a suspension for Flanigan ensued. Looking back, he said, "It was a little juvenile," but he smiled at the memory all the same.

Around 7 p.m., the Alex Donner Band started up a brass version of "Men of Dartmouth," and the guests filed in to the dining room for shrimp and steak. Father George Rutler '65 served as emcee. He sang the officially ly discouraged "Eleazar Wheelock," which opens with the lines: "Oh, Eleazar Wheelock was a very pious man; He went into the wilderness to teach the Indian," and added a Latin translation afterwards, I maybe just because he I could. He also toasted President George Bush and the Queen of England, who was enjoying her birthday that day, and then turned the podium over to former editor Michael Ellis '06, who finished school early and is working for Karl Rove. Ellis noted some of the inspirations for The Review, including retired English professor Jeffrey Hart '51, who was not able to attend. (President Jim Wright, though invited, didn't show up either.)

Next up was Laura Ingraham '85. In 1983 Ingraham wrote a piece for The Review describing a class taught by now-retired music professor Bill Cole. The article was not positive. Cole ended up suing Ingraham for $2.4 million. (The suit was later dropped.) The furor on campus and off that followed consumed barrels of ink at The Review and The Daily Dartmouth and in the national press and the offices of the administration and a number of lawyers. Ingraham is now host of The Laura IngrahamShow, currently syndicated to 340 radio stations. She likened The Review to the crazy aunt disrupting the beautiful ceremony, and added, "I wouldn't be doing what I'm doing today—which would make a lot of liberals happy—if I hadn't been at The Dartmouth Review"

The keynote speaker was Mark Steyn, a native of Toronto now living in Lyme, New Hampshire. He is a conservative columnist who writes for The Daily Telegraph and The Chicago Sun-Times as well as The NewCriterion. Steyn sat at a table near the podium with some of his fans from the current staff. He opened with a one-liner about immigration reform, saying, "I'm one of the people here to do the jobs Americans won't do, which apparently includes speaking to The Dartmouth Review" and ended exhorting Americans to remember the "big ideas" behind the war in Iraq.

Kevin Hudak '07, the current president of The Review, had organized the gala. Not old enough to drink, he relied instead on a succession of Diet Cokes. He had rented a tuxedo for the occasion. Asked if he had tied his own bowtie, he laughed, and said, "No, I'm not that kind of conservative."

As the evening wore down toward 10 p.m., John Quilhot '90 and John Sutter '88, a former photographer and a former editor, respectively, were picking up their coats. Both were veterans of a second Professor grahamCole affair, in which Quilhot and Sutter surprised the professor with a camera and a tape recorder in order to solicit comments about a Review article. The ensuing exchange ended up with the two students suspended for disorderly conduct, though Sutter's suspension, the longer of the two, was later reduced after some legal wrangling.

Quilhot was asked how he felt about the school now. "You know, I first visited Dartmouth on a perfect summer day in June," he said. "When you see it on a day like that, it's impossible not to love it."

Paper Trail Rewew founders Gordon Haff, Th'81 (left), and Gregory Fossedal '81 celebrate Ronald Reagan's 1980 presidential election; the first isSUE featured a cover cartoon by Steve Kelley '81.

BRYANT URSTADT is a freelance writer livingin Guilford, Connecticut.