Letters

History Revisited

PUBLISHING JAMES ZUG '91's FRANK article about "The Slaves of Dartmouth" [Jan/Feb] was an admirable act, one that set off a surge in pride in me. I've been well removed from alumni affairs with a few exceptions, having gone on to the Peace Corps in Iran after grad school. This article rang true and I hope many have pondered it. My hope is that it will contribute to a desperately needed reassessment of Americas role in the world.

Boston

THE JAN/FEB ISSUE OF DAM HIT THE highest marks for insightful articles examining great issues that are critical for our society. "The Slaves of Dartmouth" revealed a dimension of our institutional history unknown to me. Zugs recap of the initiatives undertaken by Brown and others suggests actions for leaders at Dartmouth to emulate. The legacy of slavery, to which we are all connected, is too significant for us to ignore.

"How The Right Went Wrong" by James Panero '98 helped me to understand and appreciate the intellectual vigor and integrity of conservative thought in America—at least as practiced by professor emeritus Jeffrey Hart '51. Jacques Steinberg '88's interview with Martin Sherwin '59 was so compelling that I bought Sherwin's book on Oppenheimer. Sherwin's chilling observations about the proliferation of nuclear weapons are a disturbing and important wake-up call. We need a widespread civil and societal conversation about the disastrous paths we and other nations are pursuing. Sherwin's analysis of the fate of Oppenheimer offers little hope that members of the scientific community will be offering new and different directions.

Winter Springs, Florida

"THE SLAVES OF DARTMOUTH" UN derlined the pervasiveness of slavery in early American society. Leon Burr Richardson's two-volume History ofDartmouth College (1932) includes owning slaves in a discussion of Eleazar Wheelock's financial status. He speculates that the bills of sale for "seven colored men and women" probably did not reveal the "full extent of his holding," correctly suggesting that the documentary evidence understates the amount of slavery in the North.

Professor Allen R. Foley '20 anfiually lectured on the history of the College to waves of incoming freshmen. His copy of Richardson contains marginal marks and "slaves" underlined at the two passages dealing with Wheelock's slaves, yet these facts did not make their way into his lecture. The College, however, did not shy away from Wheelock's owner ship of slaves. Frederick Chases 1891 A History of Dartmouth College and the Town ofHanover contains several pages on the matter. The full discussion in James D. McCallum's 1939 Eleazar Wheelock:Founder of Dartmouth published virtually all of the historical information in Zug's story.

Historians have long disputed as incorrect the assertion of the 1790 federal census (1791 in Vermont, when it joined the Union) that the Vermont population might have included slaves. Interestingly, that same census lists West Rutland's renowned, partially black clergyman in the "white" columns.

Essex, Vermont

HERE'S MY SOLUTION TO THE ISSUE Zug presents: (1) Let all living members of the Dartmouth community who were themselves enslaved by Eleazar Wheelock be given free tuition to the College. (2) Let all living members of the Dartmouth community who themselves held slaves in Hanover be flogged in the center of the Green. (3) Let the rest of us thank Zug for this footnote to Dartmouth's history and contemplate how much American society has improved in the past 250 years.

Fairfax Station, Virginia

Hart and Soul

I WAS DELIGHTED TO READ ABOUT my classmate Jeff Hart '51 ["How The Right Went Wrong," Jan/Feb]. It is so refreshing to learn of a lifelong conservative who has taken serious issuewith the "neocon" policies of the Bush administration and is willing to do so in very specific terms. Unfortunately, we seem to have too few Jeff Harts willing to confront the current administration in an outspoken and serious fashion.

Kennebunkport, Maine

DURING MY TIME AT DARTMOUTH Jeffrey Hart was considered a political relic. His conservative credentials and connections to a recently impeached President made him the crazy uncle in the attic of the College. My, how times and points of view changed as he became relevant, if not chic, during the resurgence of an American conservative movement.

As someone whose real world experiences have matured his political views, I am amazed how smart Hart has become since I judged his perspective as anachronistic.

Binghamton, New York

SEEMINGLY HART'S ABSTINENCE from alcohol undermines his conservative credentials. Et tu, George Bush. Perhaps more than anything else the recent midterm elections represent the American peoples rejection of sober politics.

Albuquerque, New Mexico

Dropping a Bomb

MARTIN SHERWIN '59 ALMOST GETS it right ["Life with Oppenheimer," Jan/Feb] when he says of the near-miss Cuban nuclear holocaust, "It's a story about the rationalization of stupidity." What his unrelentingly leftist interpretation of the complex Oppenheimer saga, the A-bomb, the FBI, etc., so aptly illustrates is that it is a story about the rationalization of ideology.

It is discouraging to recognize that scientists (and historians such as Sherwin), people trained in the use of reason to analyze problems, seem to lose all reason when it comes to subjects political. As proof, find a scientist who is not a liberal who believes global warming is caused and can be stopped by humans; then find one who is not a conservative who believes human contribution is slight and that natural cycles cannot be stopped. Some of these great thinkers should try to answer the enduring puzzle: Why is ideology so corrosive to clear thinking? Boston

Opening Doors

LISEL MURDOCK'S ARTICLE ABOUT her work at Windsor Prison ["Prison Break," Jan/Feb] was an excellent example of what makes Dartmouth special. Kudos to Professors Katz and Schweitzer for developing such a challenging and rewarding educational experience for both students and inmates.

The story brought back my memories of spending several days and nights as an inmate at Windsor in the mid-1970s when it was Vermont's maximum security prison—as part of an upper-level sociology seminar under the tutelage of the late Joan Smith. I later became a regular volunteer at the prison, tutoring and playing in a weekly basketball game between Dartmouth students and the inmates. This exposure to the justice system led to a career working with juvenile delinquents and troubled kids in a variety of settings. Thank you, Dartmouth and Professor Smith.

New York City

MY COMPLIMENTS ON THE UPLIFTING, articulate "Prison Break," which shows how the diversity of opportunities available to Dartmouth students can enable them to expand all our horizons and sensibilities. Murdocks comments about developing a passion for social work and sympathizing with the inmates challenge all of us to be more cognizant of the less fortunate in our midst and remind us how we can really benefit each other provided we are not blinded by appearances. Murdock is in good company. Her observations are very similar to those of Mother Teresa.

Dallas, Texas

Voxing the Vote I DON'T KNOW WHETHER TO BE pleased or disappointed with the outcome of the constitution vote ["Campus," Jan/Feb]. I do know that I am extremely unhappy with the process. Without exception, the communications that I received from both sides were propaganda pieces.

When I have voted in multiple situations to change or not change the constitution of other organizations, all eligible voters were supplied a document with side-to-side comparisons of the old and proposed new sections of the constitutions. Some of these documents also contained partisan commentary that is certainly more acceptable in this context than the pure advertising to which we were subjected.

Maplewood, New Jersey

The P.C. Abyss

AS ONE WHO LOVED THE DARTMOUTH of Hopkins and Dickey, which I was privileged to attend, I have been saddened by the tendency of subsequent trustees and their anointed administrations to impel the school ever deeper into the abyss of political correctness. What was—l hope!—the nadir of this process was the unprovoked and appalling assault by Dartmouth athletic director Josie Harper upon an invited guest, the University of North Dakota. President Wright then entered into the fray ["Big Picture," Jan/Feb] by addressing a proto-lynch mob calling itself by the self-righteous name "solidarity against hatred." Wright unleashed the hoary liberal malediction "mean spirited" not against Harpers outrageous boorishness nor even against the Native American activists' hypersensitive reaction to a few bits and bobs of trivia. No! He attacked those who would address such matters with reasoned discussion, rather than hissy fits!

West Hartford, Connecticut

Grandfather Clause

THE 20 QUESTIONS RAISED BY "ARE You A Chubber" [Jan/Feb] made me wonder if anyone could answer the following: Who was my grandfather, Ed- ward K. Woodworth, class of 1897? (a) Member of Dartmouth's first ski club in 1895 (b) Glee Club soloist and leader (c) Donor, with brother Charles '07, of the house and summit of Moosilauke in 1920 (d) all of the above Answer: (d)

North Andover, Massachusetts

QUESTION NO. 13 OF YOUR DOC quiz about attributing to Dartmouth stu- dents the 1955 "bearding" of the Old Man of the Mountain does need clarification about the real Dartmouth connection: Dwight D. Eisenhower visited Franconia Notch June 24, 1955, and the bearding caper actually took place on July 7. The perpetrators were hut boys and trail crew working that summer for the Appalachian Mountain Club, not Dartmouth students.The deed was photographed by an employee working for the Cannon Mountain Tramway and printed in the Littleton Courier.

There was a Dartmouth connection in that the two hut boys in the bearding party were the sons of Bob Monahan '29, later a New Hampshire state senator and College forester. Their boss, Joe Dodge, legendary manager of the huts system, coincidentally that month had been honored by Dartmouth with an honorary degree. Seven years earlier, in the summer of 1948, Joe's son Brooks Dodge '51, Th'54—then Dartmouth student and later 1954 and 1956 Olympic skier—was reported to have hung a tree on the Old Man's chin, but there are no photographs available to officially document that caper.

Cohasset, Massachusetts

A Desk in the Family

THERE MAY BE SOME PUZZLEMENT as to why the desk that was presented by Dartmouth students to my great-grandfather, Asa Dodge Smith, upon his retirement is in the dean's office of the Dartmouth Medical School ["Artifact," Jan/Feb],

Asa Dodge Smith died the summer after his retirement. The desk went to his son, my grandfather, William Thayer Smith, a practicing physician in Hanover and the first elected dean of DMS. The desk was used in his practice. Upon his death the desk went to my father, Thayer Adams Smith, M.D., who used it in his practice in Short Hills, New Jersey. Upon Dads death my brother Robert and I decided to return it to the College as there was no practical use for it by anyone in the family. It was used in Baker Library for a time, featured in an exhibit in the Hopkins Center rotunda and then, apparently, placed in a storage facility.

I started corresponding with successive presidents of the College, starting with Kemeny and continuing through McLaughlin, Freedman and Wright, inquiring as to when the desk would be restored and prominently displayed. Replies such as "I'll check into it" led nowhere. However, after I joined forces with my friend and medical colleague Barry Smith '59 our united badgering efforts caught the attention of President James Wright. By virtue of his background as an historian, the desk was restored to its original elegance.

Sun City Center, Florida

Pen Pals

BOB KINSEY'58 ["LETTERS," JAN/FEB] suggests that U.S. foreign policy is too friendly toward Israel, the only truly functioning democracy in the Middle East. Does he really want us to favor the dictatorial Syrian regime or the Arabs of Gaza, where Hamas and Fatah are killing each other daily?

Israel is certainly far from perfect but, compared with any state or group on its borders, is the place clearly where U.S. foreign policy should put its emphasis. Even the Arab citizens of Israel generally prefer to remain Israeli citizens rather than move to a nascent "Palestinian" state.

The disastrous American foreign policy failure in Iraq is a separate issue. American support for Israel stands on its own merits.

Merion, Pennsylvania

WITH ALL DUE RESPECT TO THE CAPABILITIES of Prime Minister Olmert, his cabinet and even the Mossad, many of the comments one sees in the Israeli press these days question the present governments ability to manage Israel's own daily affairs, let alone manipulate the foreign policy of the United States.

Mercaz Shapira, Israel

Dollars and Sense

I APPLAUD ANNA MARIA LUSARDI and Alberto Alesina ["lnvestors Ed," Nov/Dec 2006] for drawing attention to the dire need for more financial education and literacy in the United States. Their description of the problem is accurate, and their solution is novel. A national adult financial education license is not a bad idea. Indeed, low national savings rates, unprecedented access to and use of consumer credit, changes in pension systems from defined benefit to defined contribution, and financial illiteracy all explain why more and more states are requiring that personal finance be taught in high schools.

But lets not hold our breath for this financial license. People can begin educating themselves right now. A highly recommended resource, the closest thing we have at the moment to an officially sanctioned manual, is the U.S. Financial Education and Literacy Commissions Web portal, www.mymoney.gov.

Brooklyn, New York

I BELIEVE HILL WELLFORD'S RESPONSE letter to Professors Lusardi and Alesina's article ["Letters," Jan/Feb ] is misguided. PBS s Frontline presented a study that showed the huge disparity in 401k investment returns. The top 20 percent always did anywhere between five and six times the annual investment rate of return of the bottom 2 o percent. They also found a direct correlation between participants'nvestment return and income. In many cases the rate of return for the bottom tier barely beat the inflation rate—if at all.

While 401ks do restrict investment options, they are far from safe. Wellford's comment that the pension system has proven disastrous is also untrue. It is not the pension system but rather corporate greed that has caused the systems demise. I implore Dartmouth to implement a mandatory course on personal finance and retirement and hope that, one day, such a course will be part of all high school curriculums.

Hampstead, New Hampshire

Biblical Proportions

THE COMPILERS OF THE TORAH DESERVE more respect than to be called "spin doctors" ["Not Your Mother's Bible," Nov/Dec 2006]. They created a timeless document that for more than 2,000 years people have studied, lived by and died for. There is more in the Torah than is dreamt of in biblical scholarship.

Columbia, Maryland

Spirit of '76

NEVER HAVE I BEEN MORE INTERESTED in or more proud of a group of alumnae than those portrayed in "The Women of' 76" [Sept/Oct 2006]. I am grateful to President Kemeny and the College's trustees for their courageous leadership. I am equally grateful for the resilience and contributions of Dartmouth's first four-year class of women.

Sioux City, lowa

I RECALL THE WINTER OF 1968-69 being long and dark, and that the first females showed up in spring 1970 as short-term visitors in our dorms and classes, resulting from a coed initiative by students—not the College. Those feminine visitors morphed into the transfer students who were our first alumnae. And Meryl Streep slept in my bed. Okay, at least I think my memories are true. Perhaps it is urban legend that she was among the Vassar "visitors" in that first or second year. I do know that the first floor of Gile Hall voted to clear out for two weeks so that ladies could live there. I was saddened to read the hurtful memories of some women from the years after I graduated. I truly regret that some of my alumnae sisters have been treated badly along the way, in those early years and since

Marshfield, Vermont

SPRING TERM OF MY SENIOR YEAR I noticed one of the exchange students working at an easel set up in College Hall in the old open space/meeting room and struck up a conversation. She told me that, due to the limited studio space in the Hop, all studio art courses were reserved for male students. Although a studio art major at her college, she was thus unable to take such courses at Dartmouth. Her current "art" project was part of a city planning course.

tant chauvinism is that it led to my oldest and closest friendship—with Ann Hurd, Mount Holyoke '71. John Kemeny s enduring legacy to the College is coeducation. I wish it had happened four years earlier.

Falls Church, Virginia

Bridge Building

THANKS TO DAM AND LUCAS Swaine for his essay "Across the Divide" [July/Aug 2006]. I applaud his optimism that a liberal democracy's more clearly articulated "explanations for its policies and procedures" will resonate sufficiently with theocrats to lead to mutual understanding. However, many of the theocrats of the Middle East, North American evangelical religion and the old ideological communists choose belief structures and stick with them without reflection on the need for recalibration in the face of inconvenient facts.

I do appreciate that Swaine surfaces the issue for discussion. It seems to me that both domestically and internationally this is by far the most important question facing humanity. How do those of us coming from the Cartesian world of facts and principles (yes, I am an engineer) coexist successfully in a world where belief carries such a strong influence as well? It strikes me that neither the supporters of liberal democracy who believe strongly in a freedom of conscience nor the theocrats of belief are going to just go away, either in Ann Arbor, Michigan, or Baghdad, Iraq. Nor should we expect to kill each other until the dispute is resolved. That seems like a self-limiting prospect. So, we need some other means.

Ann Arbor, Michigan

QUOTE/UNQUOTE "lsrael is far from perfect but, compared with any state or group on its borders, is clearly the place where U.S. foreign policy should put its emphasis." —THEODORE- S. TAPPER '61, DMS'62.

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