Hanover Review Inc. P.O. Box 343 Hanover NH, 03755
Volu m e 3 8 , Issu e 4
We d nes d ay, May 16, 2018
GREEN KEY COMES AGAIN
GOLD COAST CONCERT Causes students to look forward to another great Green Key
The History of Green Key Joseph A. Rago
Editor-in-Chief Emeritus Editor’s Note: Presented here is a history of Green Key weekend, required reading for any socially literate or historically conscious Dartmouth student. Former The Dartmouth Review Editor-in-Chief Joseph Rago ‘05 made the most recent, extensive updates and added other relevant information, much of it drawn from primary sources and personal accounts. Mr. Rago was an editorial board member of The Wall Street Journal until his death in July 2017. He won a Pulitzer Prize for editorial writing in 2011. All images appear courtesy of Dartmouth College Library. In a 1951 column in The Boston Globe, Bill Cunningham ’20 wrote: “It may come as a surprise to modern prom hoppers that
[the original] Green Key Weekend had nothing to do with their sort of business. Instead of soft lights, hot music, and gentle dabbles in romance, it came straight out of the he-man’s world of blood, sweat, and leather.” The origins of the modern Green Key celebration can be traced to 1899. The class of 1900 put together House Parties Weekend, a four-day celebration at the end of May that featured sporting events and parties and culminated in a Junior Prom on Saturday night. During the Weekend, the upperclassmen invited dates from area colleges, whose names were printed in the Daily Dartmouth on the Monday following. Over the weekend, the women would reside in the fraternity houses while the brothers found lodging elsewhere. The administra-
tion required each house to hire chaperones to guard against lewd and lascivious behavior. Thus began the tradition of “Sneaks,” whereby Dartmouth men would try to slip past the schoolmarms and matrons guarding the upstairs in small hours of the morning. The most enterprising would often employ creative measures to sneak to the upper levels of the houses to rendezvous with their best gals. During House Parties Weekend, the freshmen were not allowed to participate in the festivities and were barricaded inside the dining hall. Clearly, the freshmen took the brunt of the abuse at the College in those days. First, they were required to wear freshmen caps, floppy beanies that Clifford B. Orr ’22, in a memoir of his freshman
year, described as “absolutely the brightest green as you can imagine. They are the same color green as cerise is of red.” The embryonic Green Key marked the first weekend that the freshmen were allowed to remove the caps in public— though not before a considerable ordeal. The week leading up to House Parties Weekend was known as “running season,” when every freshman was required to run out of sight when ordered to do so by an upperclassman. Orr remembered that the campus was “covered by bobbing green caps of disappearing freshmen.” They were also required to rouse the sophomores in the morning, and to run errands for the seniors during the afternoons.
> FEATURES PAGE 6
Frat History Jeffrey Hart Founder
Editor’s note: Professor Emeritus Jeffrey Hart originally published this piece in the 2008 Green Key issue; we felt that his reflection on the history of Dartmouth’s fraternities was relevant today, given recent events. I can’t prove it with statistics, but I’m sure that President James Wright’s Student Life Initiative angered and alienated many alumni. “What, Wright is attacking the fraternities! Who is this guy? He’s attacking Dartmouth itself.” And, of course, Dartmouth must have been embarrassed by the 1978 movie Animal House, the highest grossing profit comedy in the history of the movies. Based on stories in the National Lampoon by Chris Miller who
entered Dartmouth in 1959, the “animal house” was Miller’s Dartmouth fraternity Alpha Delta Phi. The comical slob “Bluto” became a national symbol of the fraternity bum, the Dartmouth fraternity slob. This face is featured on posters and tee-shirts in the Dartmouth Co-op. Has Bluto replaced the Indian symbol? To be sure, the Animal House movie is a comedy. But Chris Miller’s recent book The Real Animal House (2004) makes it obvious that the comedy was based on actual life, and much in this book is as funny as the movie. We will return to that book in a moment. And now remember that date, 1959, when Miller arrived at Dartmouth.
> FEATURES PAGE 8
A THANK YOU TO THE GREEKS
PROHIBITION AT DARTMOUTH
DARTMOUTH HISTORY OF HUMS
Editor-in-Chief Webb Harrington thanks the Greeks at Dartmouth for creating a great scene.
Editor-in-Chief Emeritus Sandor Farkas studies the history of Dartmouth during Prohibition.
Pullitzer Prize winning Editor-in-Chief Emeritus Joe Rago explains the history of Hums.
> EDITORIAL PAGE 3
> FEATURES PAGE 10
> FEATURES PAGE 8
2 Wednesday – may 16, 2018
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The History of Green Key...................................................Page 1 Fraternity History.................................................................Page 1 Editorial: A Greek Thank You.............................................Page 3 The History of Hums.............................................................Page 7 Green Key In Pictures...........................................................Page 9 Prohibition Destroys Dartmouth.....................................Page 10
GEORGE W. BUSH READS THE REVIEW
The Dartmouth Review
Wednesday – May 16, 2018
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MASTHEAD & EDITORIAL EST. 1980
“Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win great triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to takerank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in the gray twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat.” —Theodore Roosevelt
EDITORIAL BOARD
EDITORIAL
Editor-in-Chief
A Greek Thank You
B. Webb Harrington
Editor-in-Chief Emeritus Jack F. Mourouzis
Executive Editors Joshua L. Kauderer
Managing Editors Daniel M. Bring Rachel T. Gambee
Tech Editor Erik R. Jones
Associate Editors Eashwar N. Sivarajan William G. Jelsma Alexander Rauda
Senior Correspondents Joshua D. Kotran
BUSINESS STAFF President
Noah J. Sofio
President Emeritus Robert Y. Sayegh
ADVISORY Founders
Greg Fossedal, Gordon Haff, Benjamin Hart, Keeney Jones
Legal Counsel
Mean-Spirited, Cruel, and Ugly
Board of Trustees
Martin Anderson, Patrick Buchanan, Theodore Cooperstein, Dinesh D’Souza, Michael Ellis, Robert Flanigan, John Fund, Kevin Robbins, Gordon Haff, Jeffrey Hart, Laura Ingraham, Mildred Fay Jefferson, William Lind, Steven Menashi, James Panero, Hugo Restall, Roland Reynolds, William Rusher, Weston Sager, Emily Esfahani-Smith, R. Emmett Tyrrell, Sidney Zion
NOTES Special thanks to William F. Buckley, Jr. “To be fair, you have to have a high IQ to understand The Review.” The Editors of The Dartmouth Review welcome correspondence from readers concerning any subject, but prefer to publish letters that comment directly on material published previously in The Review. We reserve the right to edit all letters for clarity and length. Please submit letters to the editor by mail or email: editor@dartreview.com Or by mail at:
The Dartmouth Review P.O. Box 343 Hanover, NH 03755 (603) 643-4370
Please direct all complaints to: editor@thedartmouth.com
Green Key is one of those events mouth men and women to interact each year that brings together the while holding each other accountable many different groups of students on for their behavior. Weekly Tails are Dartmouth’s campus. The lovely Dart- widely known to be safe social spaces mouth spring is a time to celebrate. for women at Dartmouth, a supposed After months of darkness and snow, priority of the Hanlon Administrastudents can finally come out of their tion. Meanwhile, the Greeks continue bunkers and experience a season that is to provide the benefits of brotherhood universally enjoyed across the animal and sisterhood to their members. kingdom; seniors nearing their gradAs has been noted many times by uation can let loose one final defiant writers of every generation, the young cry at their parents and the Colwill party no matter what lege administration; their elders tell them. and the freshmen can Perhaps an apt quote learn why so many comes from Jeff Goldhave loved this small blum in Jurassic Park College on a hill over – “Life finds a way.” the centuries. Under The Greek system these rare circumfills this social need stances, hundreds admirably. After so and thousands of much time and so people will come vismuch money spent it our humble campus by the administration for our party scene. in trying to build alThousands of stuternative social spacdents will join those es that have utterly guests to spend this failed, it should be weekend, and likely obvious that building B. Webb Harrington some of the week as such a social system well, milling about in a stupor, trav- from scratch is incredibly difficult. eling from celebratory event to event. Students at other schools can get by, Greeks will compete with each other, by leaning on social systems that are each trying to throw a better, more simply impossible at Dartmouth. Some memorable party that will hold more of have off-campus partying, something the throngs for longer. The Program- anathema to Dartmouth’s culture and ming Board will use its considerable dangerous for Dartmouth’s students. budget to bring musicians, food, and Off-campus partying also tends to be all other manner of festivities to our incredibly exclusive as parties are alsmall forested campus. Even the most most by necessity invite-only. Other decorous members of The Review will campuses have a viable bar scene that join into the annual celebration of is impossible here with such aggressive spring and Dartmouth. enforcement of underage drinking laws In light of this incredible event it in the Hanover area. In addition, a bar seems appropriate to thank the Greek scene where students must pay money organizations that make such an event in order to enjoy the social scene is exso fun and open to campus. As a re- clusive of students who don’t have high sult of the fraternities that throw Block incomes to bank on. Other colleges Party and the many other events of even have minimal partying, relying the week, Green Key is filled with fun on nearby universities to provide a sothings to do. Moreover, instead of sim- cial scene. This is impossible for Dartply being a series of concerts and less mouth given its location. Dartmouth’s formal events with less good securi- attempt to build a housing system comty and less ability for the attendees to parable with Princeton and Yale does protect themselves, the Greeks help nothing but reinforce this point. Their formalize and organize the entire week. housing systems are highly exclusionThis Green Key in particular promises ary, forcing interaction only among to be an event to remember with rising people within the house. Moreover, artist Tinashe coming to campus. both schools have outside social scenes In spite of the administration’s best provided by either fraternities or eatefforts to assault Greeks, including ing clubs. derecognizing Alpha Delta and Sigma The strong social scene that is open Alpha Epsilon, and suspending Kap- to all is a powerful motivator for many pa Kappa Kappa for unproven minor students who choose to come to Dartinfractions, the Dartmouth Greeks mouth. Green Key is an opportunity to continue to thrive. They have taken celebrate the values of close friendship in large classes, continued substantial and openness. We enjoy the incredible charitable activities, particularly in the social scene that the Greeks have built case of ΣΑΕ, and have hosted open-to- for Dartmouth, so I think we should all campus events. These activities, how- thank those same Greeks for what they ever, are still of small importance com- have done. Without them, the Dartpared with offering on-nights open to mouth social scene would certainly be anyone with a Dartmouth student ID. far less fun and open and would likely The Greeks also hold events with so- have an exclusivity that many at Dartrorities such as Tails that allow Dart- mouth find abhorrent. Thank you.
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The Dartmouth Review
WEEK IN REVIEW R&B ARTIST TINASHE TO HEADLINE GREEN KEY Tinashe (AKA Tinashe Jorgenson Kachingwe) will headline the traditional Friday night concert. She famously performed in The Polar Express as a child and has had an impressive music career for nearly a decade. She will also be featured at the UPenn’s Spring Concert. While Tinashe does not have one particular genre of performance, she has described herself as being heavily influenced by R&B, Hip Hop, and alternative music. Among the bi-racial artist’s most famous releases are her three albums that she has produced: Aquarius, Nightride, and Joyride. The Dartmouth Programming Board excitedly announced on Instagram that they had brought Tinashe after holding the name hostage, releasing clues to her name each day. So far, many who are well connected to the modern music scene have praised the selection, and many look forward to the concert. This is in particular contrast to last year when the cast included Sage the Gemini, Cheat Codes, and Smallpools. Additionally, The Dartmouth reported that Tinashe is the first female headliner for the Green Key Concert. Members of the Programming Board have commented that this is not intended to be political and instead is the result of a more female Programming Board and selecting a top-level artist who is relevant and exciting. In other words, they have declared the selection is one based on merit. Based on commentary from various Dartmouth students looking forward to the Friday night concert, the Programming Board has probably succeeded in their effort of choosing a top-notch headliner. Once again, students and guests will be required to wear their Green Key wristbands to attend the concert.
KYLE HENDRICKS ‘12 FUMBLES HIS BALLS The pride of Big Green Baseball, Kyle Hendricks ’12, has had a rough season so far with the Chicago Cubs. In eight starts this season, he has posted a 3-3 record with an earned run average of 3.20 over
50 2/3 innings pitched. That ERA is good enough for 31st best in the league, but is nowhere near the form that the Cubs need him to reach in order to be a dominant ace. Last year Hendricks had a very disappointing year only recording 7 wins in 24 outings with the team. The Cubs need better pitching from Hendricks after a lackluster campaign during the Cub’s quest to defend their World Championship. Hendricks’ breakout 16-win season with a 2.13 ERA was a major reason why the Cubs were able to break their 107-year World Series drought. To put that into perspective, there were merely 46 states in the Union the last time the Cubs were in a world series. If the team wishes to return to championship glory again, they need Kyle to return to ace performance. “The big thing is him staying healthy,” said teammate John Lester in a recent ESPN article. “The training wheels are off, per se, as far as an organizational aspect. They limited him in ’15 and ’16. Last year he had stuff going on. Now it’s just pitching.” The Cubs are clearly banking on having Hendricks be a major part of the team going forward as he was recently chosen to take part in the recruitment of two-way playing Japanese phenomenon Shohei Ohtani. The Cubs management has made it clear time and again that they will support Hendricks through his struggles in hopes that he returns to Cy Young Award contention. Though he has posted a respectable ERA so far, this year, Hendricks is not getting any help on the offensive side either. Hendricks remains positive though, as he seeks to return to the top of his game both on the mound and in the batter’s box. “To reach the top of the game, it is health, being consistent, handling the bat even,” said Hendricks in the ESPN article. “If you want to be that top-ofthe-rotation guy, you want to be left in there for that third AB. Even fielding my position could be better.” Hopefully Hendricks finds himself back on track for the next big game.
Ivanka Trump visited Jerusalem for the opening of the embassy. Mr. Kushner spoke quite candidly about his personal affection for Israel and its importance to the Jewish people. He also reiterated President Trump’s fervent support of the nation. Mr. Kushner also made it clear that both he, and the Trump Administration feel very strongly about securing peace in the region stating, “the United States is ready to support a peace agreement in every way we can.” Despite Kushner’s comments, Palestinian protests of the embassy move were widespread. Thousands of Palestinian protesters lined Israeli fences. Some of these protesters were armed with fence cutters, knives, and rocks. Given the size of the protests, which were purportedly organized by the radical group Hamas, Israeli authorities deemed lethal force necessary in their retaliation. As a part of this retaliation, Israeli forces fired on the Palestinian protesters, which resulted in the death of 59 Palestinians. Protests were meant to continue today, Tuesday, May the 15th, but have been postponed in order to allow time for the funerals of these men and women. In light of these tragic events, an emergency meeting was called by the United Nations. After one minute of silence to commemorate the dead, many of the U.N. affiliate countries came forward to express their concern with the Israelis use of lethal force. American U.N. Ambassador, Nikki Haley, used her platform to call attention to the United Nations’s double standard for addressing violence in the Middle East. As she pointed out, violence against Palestinians is often seen as an emergency, hence the emergency meeting on Tuesday, whereas violence carried out against Israel is often entirely ignored. Her position was very much in congruence with the hardline, pro-Israel stance that the Trump Administration has taken for the entirety of their time in office.
CLASH AT GAZA STRIP AMIDST EMBASSY CHANGE
DARTMOUTH AND AMERICAN UNIVERSITY OF KUWAIT REAFFIRM PARTNERSHIP
On Monday, May 14th, substantial protests were held along the Israeli border of the Gaza Strip. These protests were largely a reaction to the opening of the US Embassy in Jerusalem, an event that the Trump Administration announced months ago. On Monday morning, Senior White House Advisor Jared Kushner, along with his wife, First Daughter
On April 23, leadership from Dartmouth and the American University of Kuwait (AUK) reaffirmed their partnership, extending their cooperation for another five years. This move constitutes the fourth such agreement, with Dartmouth and the AUK being partners for the last 15 years starting in 2003 when the American University of Kuwait was
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E.L. WOODS ALEXANDER RAUDA JOSEPH JANUSZEWICZ B. WEBB HARRINGTON JACOB HUNTER PHILLIP R. SWANSON founded. The AUK is Kuwait’s first and only liberal arts university. It was established as a private, coeducational university, based on the American liberal arts education model. The partnership between Dartmouth and the AUK has brought benefits in the shape of cross-cultural internships, fellowships, and research collaboration. Part of the Dartmouth American University of Kuwait Program consists of a summer term-long fellowship that brings one AUK faculty member to Dartmouth for research and collaboration. Also, as of this year, 34 Dartmouth students have interned at AUK, and 39 AUK students have interned at Dartmouth. Dartmouth however, is looking to expand this cooperation. According to Dale Eickelman ’64, Professor of Anthropology and Human Relations emeritus and the driving force between the partnership, the two schools are looking at creating an academic exchange program. The AUK has also been looking at partnering up with the John Sloan Dickey Center for International Understanding to develop a Center for Gulf Studies, a great resource for Dartmouth’s Middle Eastern Studies Program. The April ceremony was attended by Dartmouth’s President Phil Hanlon ’77, the chair of AUK’s board of trustees Sheikha Dana Nasser Sabah Al Ahmed Al Sabah, AUK’s vice president for admissions and public affairs Amal Albinali, as well as Aseel alAwadhi who is a former member of the National Assembly of Kuwait. Hopefully the future relationship between Dartmouth and AUK will continue to grow.
teen Dartmouth alumni and students were selected, while a year before only eight students and alumni were awarded a grant. We at The Review congratulate the recipients and wish them best of luck as Fulbright Scholars.
46TH ANNUAL POWWOW AT DARTMOUTH On May 12-13, 2018, Dartmouth College held its 46th annual Powwow. Hosted by the Native Americans at Dartmouth (NAD) and the Native American Program (NAP), Powwow is a festival celebrating Native American culture both at Dartmouth and around the country. Evan Barton 20’ and Breanna Sheehan 20’ are student co-chairs of the Powwow Organizing Committee. It is suitable that Barton himself is a member of the Cherokee Tribe of Northeastern Oklahoma and Sheehan is an Abenaki from Brattleboro, Vermont. Members of the Native
American community had their annual chance to present traditional garments, artwork, music, and food. Among the traditions executed at Powwow, is the selection of a head person dancer. The head person is one who “identifies as two-spirit, which is a gender identity in a lot of native cultures where they are the embodiment of male and female in the same body.” Among the less equivocal customs at Powwow were the dance competitions, which are split into male and female, which seems to go against the seemingly progressive gender stances of Powwow. The dances bring many people on the Green, where at the end of the festival the winners were announced. Beyond the typical customs of the natives, Powwow allows non-Natives to engage in a bit of cultural exchange. If one was genuinely eager to bring home a token of Powwow, multiple vendors sold trinkets and memorabilia of Native culture. Such enthusiasm from both students and the administration is honestly rare at the College these days. With the positive traits of Powwow, it is not hard to see why it has existed since 1973. It indeed goes to show that Eleazar Wheelock’s memory and legacy of educating those most unfortunate is not yet lost at Dartmouth.
CARTOON
FULBRIGHT SCHOLARS TO SPREAD ENGLISH ACROSS GLOBE For the last few years, the College has seen several of its fine young men and women awarded Fulbright Scholarships. This year, fourteen students and alumni Dartmouth have been given this opportunity to promote international understanding while pursuing research, study, and teaching abroad. The recipients are Charlotte Blatt ’18, Madeleine Coffey ’18, Sarah Cohen ’18, Mary Liza Hartong GR’18, Alyssa Heinze ’18, Amanda Herz ’18, Axel Hufford ’16, James Jung ’14, Natasha Maldi ’16, Gricelda Ramos ’18, Alexandra Reichert ’18, Nicole Simineri ’17, Catherine Treyz ’13 and Karen Wen ’16, not including the two alternates from Dartmouth who will be offered grants if additional funds become available. Of this year’s recipients, nine will study or do research, while the other five will be English teaching assistants. Many students participating in the program will be working on projects related to their undergraduate coursework. Dartmouth’s participants will be scattered across the continents, in Brazil, Canada, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Germany, India, Ireland, Morocco, Poland and South Korea. Following the purpose of the Fulbright Program, the students who were chosen all seek some level of cultural exchange in their time abroad. Many ‘18s who graduate this year will use the program as an extra year of work before they have to decide on a job. The Fulbright U.S. Student Program is considered the largest education exchange program in the United States. Funded by the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs (ECA), the Fulbright U.S. Student Program offers students and recent graduates the chance “to undertake international graduate study, advanced research, university teaching, and primary and secondary school teaching worldwide.” According to their website, the program funds around 1,900 individually proposed projects in various academic fields. The Fulbright Program also claims to facilitate cooperation between the U.S. and other countries to pursue solutions to common goals. In the 2016-17 cycle, fif-
“Look at all those hot dogs on the grill! It reminds me of my old Dartmouth days.”
CARTOON
“You’d think that the administration would find a way to ruin Green Key by now.”
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The Dartmouth Review
FEATURES The Origins of Green Key Joseph A. Rago
Editor-in-Chief Emeritus
> CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1 The freshmen photograph for the Aegis was always staged in the days leading up to the weekend, and the sophomore class traditionally took it upon themselves to kidnap as many of the freshman as possible so as to disrupt its taking. Marauding bands of sophomores would prowl about campus, brandishing clubs and the butt-ends of revolvers, in search of prey. When a first-year was spotted, they would give chase and seize him; captured freshmen were tossed into the cellar of the ramshackle Phi Sigma Kappa barn. In Orr’s experience, “Sixty captives were there, tied hand and foot, and strewn on the floor. We were thrown down among them, and you can believe that we passed a wretched night, with the cold winds howling through the shattered windows, and shrieking through the cracks along the damp floor.” Orr went on to describe his harrowing escape and grueling trek back to campus. “It has surely been a grand and exciting time,” he continued, “and if the whole class doesn’t come down with typhoid fever from drinking streams… we shall consider ourselves lucky. Thank Heaven, though, it’s over.” Of course, it wasn’t. At sundown, a bugle would sound and all four classes would gather at the Senior Fence. Led by the band, they would assemble into columns (the freshmen last) and march up the College Hill to the Old Pine, where elite juniors would be inducted into the Palaeopitus senior society. A parade across campus would follow, which terminated at the center of the Green, where a huge keg was waiting. In the days of Daniel Webster, the cask was filled with old New England rum; in later days, it was filled only with lemonade. Palaeopitus would advance and drink, followed by the seniors, then the juniors. By this point, the fluid would be running low, and the Rush would begin. At the crack of a pistol the sophomore and freshman classes, laying in wait on opposite sides of the Green, would charge towards the keg and attempt to pull it back towards their respective sides. Pandemonium would always ensue— several freshmen usually ended up unconscious. Orr remembered, “If you have never been in a rush, you do not know the feeling of endless pushing, panting, struggling, slipping, fearing every moment that you will be the next to disappear under the feet of the six or seven mad youths Mr. Rago is an alumnus of the College and former Editor-inChief of The Dartmouth Review.
and be trampled.” Before the Prom, a final tradition would take place— the Gauntlet. The upperclassmen would line up diagonally across the Green. The freshmen would run between them while being beaten and flogged with sticks and the sting of belt leather. (Serious injuries would often result from seniors turning their belts around and whipping with the buckles). Still, the freshmen took the Gauntlet in good spirits. For Orr’s class, “nothing very serious happened”—just “gashed and bleeding faces” and “two arms out of joint and a broken collar-bone, nothing more.” Finally, the festivities ended with the ceremonial burning of the freshman caps. Of course, the upperclassmen continued to revel at the Green Key Prom all the while. The tradition continued until 1924 when the faculty and administration decided to cancel it because of “alleged misconduct and rather wild behavior in the previous years.” It is generally believed that the ban on the Prom resulted from an incident involving Lulu McWoosh, a visiting woman who rode around the Green on a bicycle bereft of the traditional prom attire, or any other attire, following copious drinking. While students, no doubt, enjoyed the scene, the administration was not amused. The Junior Prom did not return to Dartmouth for another five years. There is no indication that anything else filled the void during the heart of the Roaring Twenties, but during this time, unrelated events transpired which would allow for the return of this festive May weekend. In 1921, the Dartmouth football team left for Seattle to play the University of Washington. The Dartmouth team was greeted at the station by uniformed Washington students who took charge of baggage, bought refreshments, and served as guides. Until then, it had been a tradition of Dartmouth students to view visiting athletic teams with hostility. The warm welcome in Washington inspired the formation of a similar organization at Dartmouth, and, on May 16,1921, the Green Key was born as a sophomore honor society. The society underwent dramatic structural revision over the next few years, both in terms of the way it selected its members and in its function. Initially, it had three aims: entertaining representatives of other institutions, acting as freshman rule enforcement committee, and selecting from its ranks the head cheerleader and the head usher of the College. Only the first of these aims remains today. About two years after its inception, the society voted to turn its “vigilante function”—forcing freshmen to wear their caps—over to the sophomores. In time, the function of
selecting the head usher and cheerleader was turned over to various College departments. In 1927, at the faculty’s request, society members wore their uniforms of white trousers, green sweaters, and green caps with the key emblem during freshman week to help clueless frosh find their way around the College. To meet the expenses of entertaining visiting teams, the society sponsored an annual fundraiser. In 1929, this became the Green Key Spring Prom. The party had returned. The administration felt that the weekend would be better organized and take on an air of civility if the Green Key Society oversaw the activities. In 1931, the College banned fraternity house parties because of frequent occurrences of what it called “disorderly conduct.” President Hopkins, at one point, threatened to ban Green Key festivities, writing in a letter to Inter-Fraterni-
THE ALPHA DELTA LAWN PARTY A Tradition waiting to be renewed now, was always an integral part of the festivities. Green Key provided the occasion for one of Judson Hale’s most famous anecdotes. Hale was a member of the class of ’55 and the storied editor of Yankee magazine; he was expelled from the College after vomiting Whiskey Sours on Dean Joseph McDonald and his wife during a performance of the “Hums.” Hums, according to Orr, was a “Dartmouth tradition, old as the College, I guess.” Each fraternity would compose a tune and perform it for the College at large, to be judged by the music department and other administrators. Hums became a bone of contention as the years passed by and the songs became racier and filthier. The administration gradually became less and less tolerant of these amusing tunes, and eventually began censoring them once the College went co-ed. In 1979 “Real
“At sundown a bugle would sound and all four classes would gather at the Senior Fence. Led by the band, they would assemble into columns (the freshmen last) and march up to the College Hill to the Old Pine, where elite juniors would be inducted into the Palaeopitus senior society. ” ty Council president Albert Bidney ‘35 that “the Green Key Promenade cannot be held unless definite assurances can be made that propriety will attend it.” Still, Green Key weekend took on epic proportions. It became the font from which Dartmouth alums drew their most fantastic stories of life at Dartmouth. The Boston Herald and The New York Times carried accounts of the weekend and published a guest list of the largest yearly party in the Ivy League. The list was no small undertaking, considering that thousands of women from all over the Northeast made the pilgrimage to Dartmouth. The fraternities took on the enviable task of housing this flood of eager women. The Green Key Ball was forcibly brought to an end in 1967 after rioting broke out. Drinking, then as
Hums,” sponsored by the Inter-Fraternity Council, was introduced, free from the College’s red pen. Real Hums caught on for a while and was even reported once by Playboy magazine to be the best party of the year. Eventually, though, the tradition fell by the wayside. Gradually, the Gauntlet, too—for whatever reasons— faded away, though the ingrained traditions of ritualized beatings proved harder to stamp out. During the “Wetdowns,” newly elected student government representatives would be pelted with vegetables, food, and debris as they ran across the Green. During the 1960s, a tradition of chariot racing took root. The fraternities would construct unsteady and unbalanced chariots, which new and intoxicated pledges would haul around a track on the Green while being
assailed by eggs, condiments, flour, rotting vegetables, sacks of potatoes, beer cans, and other rubbish. The race ended when all the chariots were demolished. Eventually the administration forced the races off the Green and to a large field near the river. When the event finally became too violent near the end of the eighties, the chariot races came grinding to a halt. Green Key has traditionally had no theme—simply a weekend to take college holiday for no reason. Only once in its illustrious history has it had one, and it was an unmitigated disaster. At the behest of Director of Student Activities Linda Kennedy, the College officially dubbed Green Key “Helldorado” in 1994. The tag honored the Swinging Steaks, a band the Programming Board had hired to play in the center of Green. Students could also enjoy a petting zoo, human gyroscope, moon-bounce, and a magician. Needless to say, there was no theme the following year. Today, though the most outlandish and violent traditions of Green Key have faded into obscurity, the spirit of the weekend lives on. Though the weekend is devoted to little more than revelry, partying, and hanging out, it has been reinvigorated over the past few years. The idea of Green Key has evolved into a celebration of spring for the campus; a great excuse for students and alums alike to enjoy both the fair weather and smooth beers. A staple of Green Key since it began in the early nineties, despite a short interruption earlier in this decade, Phi Delta Alpha’s Block Party on Friday enlivens Webster Ave and sets the pace for the weekend’s festivities. Alpha Delta’s Lawn Party provides in that same strain an opportunity for daylight inebriation, despite the best efforts of Hanover’s finest. As Clifford Orr wrote in May 1918, “These are happy days. The evenings are so warm and so perfectly delightful that we do our best to get our studying done in the afternoons that we might [hang out] well before dark.”
The Dartmouth Review
Wednesday – May 16, 2018
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FEATURES
The History of Hums
HUMS An old tradition we may have failed - or at least NRO’d.
Joseph A. Rago
Editor-in-Chief Emeritus Editor’s Note: The following history of Hums by Joseph Rago ‘05 was first published in 2004. Mr. Rago was an editorial board member for The Wall Street Journal until his death in July 2017. He won a Pulitzer Prize in 2011. It is a very detailed and historical look at an oft-forgotten tradition of the College. Hums are no longer part of Green Key weekend; Rago details why the tradition is now no longer. Perhaps, that was a good change. The Green Key weekend historically marked the occasion when the ‘Hums’ were performed at the College. The Hums, dating from 1899, were clever and humorous tunes composed by the fraternities and presented by their pledges for the amusement of all. In the spirit of good-natured competition, the Hums were judged by faculty and administrators, with a small purse going annually to the house with the best song. Of course, the College being what it was, things gradually degenerated. Traditionally, performers were attired in crisp white shirts and pressed pants as black as night; by the late sixties, the standards were somewhat less fastidious (see accompanying photo-graph). The content slipped as well. Over the years, the songs became more and more risqué, and, ultimately, entirely inappropriate. ‘The Cohog Song’ is perhaps the most infamous Hum, debuting during the spring of Mr. Rago is an alumnus of the College and former Editor-inChief of The Dartmouth Review.
1975. Those were heady days at the College, women having been first admitted some three years previous. The Hanover Plain was hardly a hospitable place for the new co-eds. The male-to-female ratio, I’m told, was something like eightythree-to-one. One evening before Green Key, some miscreant stole the toilet seats from every single female restroom on campus. “Our Cohogs,” as the Hum was officially titled, hardly added to the cordial ambiance. Performed to the melody of “This Old Man,” it proclaimed that Dartmouth’s new women were “all here to spoil our fun,” that “they all ruined our mas-
A ‘cohog’ is literally a clam, being a phonetic spelling of ‘quahog.’ But it was intended by the song-smiths who dashed off the jingle as a base vernacular term for a woman’s vagina. They also had a double purpose in mind. Unveiled during the first days of ‘co-education,’ ‘cohog’ branded College women as swine. Hums, though insensitive, still took more than a decade to peter out. To this day the influence of the Cohog song remains pernicious, or so I’m told, as some insouciant wags still spontaneously burst into song when the occasion strikes them. And that’s the basic gist
“Captain Peleg was a man of simplicity and honesty, but he was also a vinegary old crank. Once, at the sailing-hour for a voyage to the Orient, he promised his wife Arathusy that he would write her a letter from afar, so that he might staunch her weeping and not hold up his vessel.” culine heaven,” that “they’re all a bunch of f-----g whores.” Goodness. Most of the other lines are unsuited for publication, but “Our Cohogs” ends with the chorus “With a nick nack patty whack / Send the b-tches home / Our cohogs go to bed alone.” Many co-eds attending Hums walked out that year, but the song delighted others—namely, the Dean of the College, Carroll Brewster. Dean Brewster was the head judge and he immediately proclaimed “Our Cohogs” the finest song in the competition. He bounded to the stage, and, throwing his arms around the performers, took the lead in a rousing encore presentation of the racy verses.
of cohogs at the College. In other areas of New England, however, cohogs are not the subject of ridicule—but, rather, of respect and high esteem. On Cape Cod, quahogs (as I will now properly reference the beasts) would be esteemed a delicious luxury but for their great plenty along the sandy shores—as such, they are merely a delicious staple. Quahogs are oval-shaped hinged shellfish, a variety of which conchologists call bi-valvular. They have an extremely hard shell and a tough adductor muscle that, in combination, allows them to bolt themselves off from the rest of the world in a fashion that few living crea-
“A proper quahog chowder is always made, not cooked, and it never contains tomatoes.” tures can command; they then bury themselves at the edge of the shore and beneath the sea bottom. That is, until they’re harvested and consumed by man. The standard bill of fare on the Cape is hale and plain— johnnycakes, fried smelts, salted alewives, cranberry conserve, Indian pudding, &c. Quahogs, however they’re prepared, are an essential part of the diet. They can be stuffed, for instance, after they’ve been shucked (always remembering to use a good clam-knife and to fold the fingers, not squeeze). The belly and the mantle are chopped or ground and mixed with bread crumbs and seasoning and spooned back into the shell. Or, they can be made into quahog pie, which is exactly what it sounds like: quahogs in cream sauce underneath a pastry lattice. Quahog pie, no longer the indispensable dish that it once was, usually came as a breakfast dish. It was also savored at four of the clock, the customary break from the afternoon’s labor, be it raising a barn or laying in a cargo of cod. Quahog pie was usually accompanied by hard cider or blackstrap, a concoction of molasses and West Indian rum. A chowder is a more customary way of serving quahogs these days. A proper quahog chowder is always made, not cooked, and it never contains tomatoes. The atrocious pink stew found on metropolitan menus is wholly an affront. The quahog bellies must be thrown pell-mell into a cauldron and marinated in their own liquor, before adding butter, onions, charbroiled potatoes, and well-larded salt pork, with cream added at the last. A more sociable way of consuming the indomitable quahog is at clam bake (though the quahogs are actually steamed). A pit is excavated on the beach and filled with burning cord; stones are added and fired red white hot. When the blaze expires, wet rockweed is raked over embers and the quahogs are piled on fresh from the sea; on top that, corn, potatoes, onions, and fish wrapped in cheesecloth. Then the whole rig is covered with sand and battened down with a canvas or tarpaulin, and left for hours to cook. A clam bake ends with a meal enjoyed by all. Then there is the celebrated recipe of Captain Peleg Hawes, a man whose fame has been handed down through the oldline New England folkways. Captain Peleg would simply place the quahogs mouth down onto the ground and toss hot coals a-plentifully across their
backs, the searing heat destroying the tenacity of the hinges. The Captain would simply remove the upper shell and apply a pat of freshly-churned butter and a sprinkling of sea’s salt and coarse pepper. If he were feeling especially audacious, he would add a squeeze of lemon. Captain Peleg was a man of simplicity and honesty, but he was also a vinegary old crank. Once, at the sailing-hour for a voyage to the Orient, he promised his wife Arathusy that he would write her a letter from afar, so that he might staunch her weeping and not hold up his vessel. Twelve months from his departure, Arathusy received an envelope by post; trembling, she tore into it to find: Hong Kong, China, May 21, 1854. Dear Arathusy: I am here and you are there. P. Hawes. It would seem, then, that chauvinism was not limited to Old Dartmouth, but to Old Cape Cod as well—which brings us to the point of this fairly lengthy digression. The term ‘quahog’ was as exclusionary on the Cape as was ‘cohog’ at the College. The quahog’s aboriginal name,‘poquauhocks,’ came by way of the Narragansett Indians. OffCape the word was abominably degraded to ‘clam,’ buton-Cape it remained. Those who came from afar the Massachusetts coast were bewildered both by the menus and by the tall-talk of the laconic townsmen speaking of the mysterious “Quahog.” Eventually, the force of custom eroded, and the faint-of-heart devised ‘co-hog’ as a mnemonic aid for the un-initiated. At Dartmouth, they thought the co-eds would blow the curve, ruin the football team, and force everyone into summer school, and so they used the term the other way around and yet in the same way: to exclude and to humiliate. Remember that, whether you’re admiring a pert quahog sunning herself on the Green or a unearthing a cohog when the tide is at low ebb.
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The Dartmouth Review
FEATURES
A History of Dartmouth’s Fraternities
SIGMA PHI EPSILON Image Courtesy of Dartmo
Jeffrey Hart
Founder
> CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1 My father was in the class of 1921 at Dartmouth, and his fraternity, Sigma Nu, remained important to him throughout his life. He wore a silver Sigma Nu ring and a Sigma Nu plaque hung on our wall. I gather that the fraternity then was a place where the members sang around the piano, drank even though it was Prohibition, and of course had a good time. In his essay “Woodrow Wilson at Princeton” Edmund Wilson recalls the Princeton clubs along Prospect Street as having “that peculiar idyllic quality which is one of the endearing features of Princeton. It is dif-
I was in the Columbia class of 1952 and joined the fraternity Phi Kappa Psi. In many ways the 1950s were a rerun of the 1920s, including the Scott Fitzgerald revival. The Phi Psi house was a three story town house on 114 Street, two blocks south of the Columbia campus. The Sigma Chi house was nearby off the same street. Those who lived in the Psi house had sit-down dinners, jacket and tie required. The dinner was served by a Hispanic couple who lived in the house and received room and board for preparing dinner and helping to keep the place reasonably clean. The man had a regular job somewhere else, so it was a pretty good deal for them.
“Every Saturday we had a cocktail party, jackets and tie of course, and faculty members were invited and usually came. ” ficult to describe this quality in any very concrete way, but it has something to do with the view from Prospect Street from the comfortable back porches of the clubs, over the damp dim New Jersey lowlands, and with the singular feeling of freedom which refreshes the alumnus from an American city when he goes back to Prospect Street and realizes that he can lounge, read or drink as he pleases.” I think my father had similar feeling about Sigma Nu and fraternity row. Mr. Hart is an emeritus professor of English the College and a founder of The Dartmouth Review.
Every Saturday we had a cocktail party, jackets and tie of course, and faculty members were invited and usually came. Jacques Barzun sometimes showed up, Gilbert Highet, Lionel Trilling. We admired them and we wanted their approval. We understood that adults ran the world, and we aspired to be adults. On big weekends we had the usual Saturday cocktail party and a black-tie dance with live music. If this sounds respectable to you, then you should have seen St. Anthony’s Hall, down on Riverside Drive. That was so stratospherically preppy that oxygen would have been in order. That crowd wore tartan jackets and fancy vests.
At our black-tie dances at Phi Psi and at the Saturday dances at the West Side Club, we danced to the same music as the adults, the “standards,” as they are called, Cole Porter, Rogers and Hammerstein. All of that changed in the 1960s. Remember: Chris Miller entered Dartmouth in 1959. In 1968, half the American population was eighteen years old. Let me repeat: half of the entire population was in the vicinity of eighteen years old in the 1960s, as the baby boomers came of age. At Dartmouth in the early 1960s, Chris Miller was a student. The baby boom was also affecting Europe, especially France, where student riots, beginning at the university in Nanterre near Paris, were joined by workers’ riots— France retains a revolutionary tradition—and rocked the DeGaulle government. A major student complaint was parietals, hours when women were permitted to be in rooms with men. In other words the riots were over conservative French attitudes about sex. Germany, England, and other European nations had the same phenomenon. A sociologist friend of mine, the late E. Digby Baltzell, compared the 1968 international Kids uprisings to the revolutions of 1848. The American “baby boomers” formed a separate Kids Nation within the larger nation. Unlike the undergraduates of the 1950s, they did not want to be adults. They had their own music, rock-and-roll, their distinctive clothes and hair, their own sacrament in marijuana, and for extremists, LSD. As Scott Fitzgerald explains in his 1931 essay “Echoes of the Jazz Age,” “The word ‘jazz’ in its progress toward respectability has meant first sex, then dancing, then music,” the music coming from black musicians in the red light district of New Orleans. The Sixties “Rockand-Roll” also meant sex in black idiom. And the Sixties Kids had the pill. Beginning in 1953, I spent almost four years in Naval Intelligence. I returned to Columbia and joined the English Department in 1956, and then moved
to the Dartmouth English Department in 1963—Dartmouth having been impressed by a book I had published at Alfred Knopf. In 1963 the Kids Nation had really begun to rebel not only against adults but also against
take the loss. In the fall of 1968, I wrote Nixon’s “Law and Order” speech, delivered in Philadelphia. The Kids uprising and the black revolution helped elect Nixon. In 1972 I was teargassed at the Republican con-
“1968 was the year Martin Luther King was assassinated, and then Robert Kennedy, running for president, was assassinated in Los Angeles. Jack Kennedy had been assassinated in 1963. The country felt like a shooting gallery. This was the closest our country ever came to a revolution. ” the idea of being adults. The war in Vietnam, and the draft, soon began to raise the temperature of the Kids’ rebellion, and by 1968 it was as if the gates of hell had opened. For a few months in early 1968 I was in Sacramento as a speechwriter for Governor Ronald Reagan, who was running for the Republican nomination, sort of. In California most of the young men looked like Charlie Manson. Walking down Telegraph Avenue in Berkeley near the great university you could get high just breathing the air. Mario Savio had led an uprising at Berkeley. The black riot had burned Watts a couple of years earlier. When the Black Panthers in Oakland threatened a “bloodbath,” Reagan said at a press conference, “If they want a bloodbath they can have a bloodbath.” And he meant it. 1968 was the year Martin Luther King was assassinated, and then Robert Kennedy, running for president, was assassinated in Los Angeles. Jack Kennedy had been assassinated in 1963. The country felt like a shooting gallery. This was the closest our country ever came to a revolution. In March 1968 Lyndon Johnson, finally understanding that the Vietnam War could not be won, announced that he would not run for re-election. Nixon ran promising to “end the war and win the peace in Vietnam.” Notice that Nixon didn’t say “win the war.” He would pull out, turning the war over to the hapless Vietnam army (“Vietnamization”), which would
vention in Miami when Vietnam Veterans Against the War rioted outside the Convention Center. Tear gas is no joke, painful, even dangerous, and the air conditioners carried the fumes into the convention. Back at Dartmouth I remember teaching a course in English poetry in which many students were so glazed over with drugs that discussion was all but impossible. No one seemed interested in seventeenth century poetry. Students in that class included the son of a famous journalist and also the son of a mid-western governor. One of them disappeared into Tibet, seeking nirvana, I guess. The Kids’ rebellion against adulthood was often destructive in the fraternities. There used to be a DKE (Deke) house on West Wheelock Street, where that building on stilts now stands. The Deke house was a fine old white wooden building. By the early 1970s, the members had gutted the place, destroyed it from within. The whole place had to be torn down, its destruction a symbol of the Kids Revolution. I remember the spring “Hums” one year during the 1970s when the fraternity singing groups were singing in front of Dartmouth Hall. In the past this had been a beautiful event. The Dekes showed up carrying a small pig and insulted the few women undergraduates then enrolled at Dartmouth by singing “Our Cohogs (clams).” I suppose the pig was part of the insult. Continued on Page 11
The Dartmouth Review
Wednesday – May 16, 2018
FEATURES
Green Key in Pictures
Top row, left to right: the storied chariot races of yesteryear; the Green Key Society gathers to celebrate the weekend in 1926. Middle row, left to right: the Glee Club performs in a past Green Key; a student band plays. Bottom row, left to right: a student greets his date at the train station in White River Junction; Phi Delt’s block party.
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The Dartmouth Review
FEATURES
Prohibition Destroys Dartmouth
True Social Justice Warriors.
Sandor Farkas
Editor-in-Chief Emeritus
In 1919, the United States Congress and thirty-six states ratified the Eighteenth Amendment to the Constitution, effectively prohibiting alcohol. Dartmouth’s isolation spared it from the ravages of the American War of Independence, making it the only institution of higher education in the fledgling states to continue classes throughout the conflict, yet not even the wilds of
of a greater import took place on this campus in those fourteen years. Throughout Prohibition, the nation looked at Dartmouth as representative of the effectiveness of temperance in the New England colleges, if not in all of higher education. President Ernest Martin Hopkins, Dartmouth’s Eleventh President, became the archetypal neutral, rational, and moral public figure in the debate over the Eighteenth Amendment. Hop-
“In a 1920 letter to Hopkins, alumnus Thomas Groves wrote, ‘it seems to me that there is at least twice as much drinking at present among the undergraduates as at any time in the last six years.’”
New Hampshire could spare the College from Prohibition. Student rumors abound as to what exactly took place at the College between 1920 and 1933, the years in which the government enforced Prohibition. Current students and alumni may have heard of a young Theodore Geisel’s encounter with the administration over alcohol or of a student’s murder over the same. While these two incidents have a kernel of truth to them, affairs Mr. Farkas is an alumnus of the College and an Editor-in-Chief Emeritus of The Dartmouth Review.
kins grew up working in granite mines, and graduated from Dartmouth in 1901. His administration spanned the two World Wars, and is remembered for its emphasis on liberal arts and academic freedom, as well as its bias against Jews. In spite of the latter fact, Hopkins served the nation in high administrative positions on two occasions. An early advocate of temperance, Hopkins seems to have initially supported the Eighteenth Amendment out of a Christian belief in temperance and overly-optimistic mindset. In a 1930 letter to the National Temperance Council, he reflected on this commitment to temperance
and his initial support, “I feel so strongly in regard to the desirability of temperance in the use of alcoholic liquors, as in all other things, that despite my objections to the whole theory of the Eighteenth Amendment, I would support it if I either had seen or was seeing at the present day any evidence to justify a belief that legislation enacted under the amendment had worked or that
began to surface at Dartmouth, it appears that these doubts began to grow in Hopkins’s mind. In a 1920 letter to Hopkins, alumnus Thomas Groves wrote, “It seems to me that there is at least twice as much drinking at present among the undergraduates as at any time in the last six years. Perhaps it is more boistrous [sic] and only sounds as though it were so widespread.”
it could be made to work.” In spite of a 1923 vote by the faculty to expel any student caught drinking, Dartmouth soon became a hub for bootleggers. Many students travelled by train to Montreal to drink, while students and entrepreneurs alike worked to smuggle spirits from Canada to Vermont and then onto campus by automobile and train. Contemporary reports say that while most of the liquor in Hanover was watered down and of poor quality, finer stuff was available. One witness even claimed that fine wine was available at College functions. Townspeople operated stills, and some sold whiskey, purportedly at $11 a quart, or around $150 today. When the liquor smuggling
He lamented that, “Among men from other colleges I have heard Dartmouth referred to as ‘the Cuba of the north,’ and I have heard several preparatory school boys gloat over the news that liquor is plentiful in Hanover.” He pushed Hopkins to act, arguing, “a Dartmouth man I think I can distinguish between exuberance and drunkenness, and it is against what appears to me to be a considerably unnecessary amount of the latter that I wish to register me humble ‘kick.’” Hopkins replied, “In general, I feel that the minimum of interference with undergraduate life that can be got along with, makes for the self-reliance and independence for which the undergraduate body at Dartmouth is somewhat conspicuous. My
“He lamented that, “Among men from other colleges I have heard Dartmouth referred to as ‘the Cuba of the north,’ and I have heard several preparatory school boys gloat over the news that liquor is plentiful in Hanover.”
convictions, however, do not run to the extent of willingly tolerating the conditions longer as they have been developing.” A number of events and trends thrust Dartmouth into the national spotlight and formulated the perception that it was “an oasis in a dry land.” In 1921, Hopkins sent a letter to alumnus Matt Jones enumerating the problems as the college, “I know beyond the peradventure of a doubt that the jitneys are bringing in liquor by the gallon from Rutland, Vermont, that it is being secured to some extent in White River Junction, while just now I have received information that believe to be authentic that a system of rum-running from New York is being put into operation with New England college towns as specific destinations.” He asked Jones for help, writing, “I would like some real he-man [sic] with automatic revolvers and backbone who would hold up some of the suspicious automobiles that are floating around here and would put a sufficient crimp in the idea that Hanover is easy picking.” In addition to this general trend, a 1920 student murder over a bottle of alcohol caught the nation’s attention. Robert Meads shot fellow student Henry Maroney in his room at ΤΔΧ. After the incident, ΤΔΧ became known as “The BoomBoom Lodge.” A subsequent investigation revealed that the two had been quarrelling over whiskey, as well as a cache of whiskey in Meads’ rooms. The court sentenced Meads to hard labor, though he was later institutionalized. While liquor was no doubt the immediate cause of the shooting, it turns out that Meads had shot another student the year before—he was not charged because the victim, in his last breath, asked the authorities to spare Meads, saying it was nothing more than a quarrel between brothers. A persistent legend in this period concerns Theodor Seuss Geisel, who went on to become a famous writer under the pen name “Dr. Seuss.” While much of the legend is apocryphal, some of it holds true. Geisel, the son of brewers from Springfield, Massachusetts, graduated Dartmouth in 1925 and was a brother at ΣΦΕ. He wrote for the JackO-Lantern, eventually becoming the editor-in-chief. While legend holds that he was suspended for consuming gin under Prohibition, Dartmouth College records show that Dean Craven Laycock cited him for an unspecified offense, forcing him to resign from all extracurricular activities. Geisel therefore turned to pen names, including L. Pasteur, L. Burbank, D. G. Rossetti, T. Seuss, Seuss, and Dr. Theophrastus Seuss, finally settling on Dr. Seuss. Continued on next page
The Dartmouth Review
Wednesday – May 16, 2018 11
FEATURES
Prohibition Destroys Dartmouth While Hopkins worked hard to reduce drinking at the College, he was critical of those who accused Dartmouth of being exceptionally prone to alcohol consumption, “Among the exceptions there will always be men potentially dangerous to the welfare and reputation of the group as a whole, however carefully the selective processes of the College are operated or however insistently the moral code is imposed.” This brought much attention to some of Hopkins’ offhand comments that were not so much critical, but skeptical, of the Eighteenth Amendment. A 1932 article in the Boston Post spoke of “the stand taken by President Ernest M. Hopkins on the subject of prohibition,” and claimed, “The head of the college has attacked prohibition policies.” In reality, as Hopkins himself put it in a 1931 memorandum to the Treasurer of the College, “There is an assumption in some minds that because of my statement that I do not like the Eighteenth Amendment therefore I am in sympathy with an increased amount of drunkenness.” He immediately became
the subject of countless requests for comment, though he refused to go public with his views out of principle: he held Dartmouth’s future more dear than public opinion, and he genuinely cared about his students. Some of his opinions still leaked out. In a letter to the National Temperance Council latter published in the New York Times, he wrote that he could not understand why, “individuals or organizations whose solicitude is for building up a spirit of temperance can continue either to believe in or to support the theory or the practice of the Eighteenth Amendment….” His opposition continued along the line that he, “felt very strongly that [the Eighteenth Amendment] gave too much justification to building up great new powers of the Federal government,” and that he did, “not believe that it is a proper function of the constitution of a great Federal Government like the United States to devise sumptuary provisions for personal conduct.” Major anti-Prohibition organizations and politicians courted him and wrote to encourage
him to express his opinion publicly. While he initially refused to even suggest his position, only stating that he was interested in hearing more and commending them for their work, he later expressed sympathy with them in private correspondence. In 1930, he wrote to renowned New Jersey Senator, former ambassador, and businessman Dwight W. Morrow to express his support for Morrow’s moderate stance against the Eighteenth Amendment. When the situation at Dartmouth failed to improve, he finally agreed to come out in favor of repealing the Eighteenth Amendment, but was nonetheless reluctant to make any public statement that was “not absolutely necessary.” In his letter to the National Temperance Council, he wrote about his despair at the current situation, “Areas which used to be wholly dry are not saturated, not only with liquors, but with a spirit of complete abandon in regard to the control or use of these. Likewise, the original attitude of resentment against the use of law for the support of this amendment has given
place to a complete indifference to the requirements of the law, which to me is a more dangerous situation.” In response, pro-Eighteenth Amendment groups made a desperate appeal to Hopkins for his assistance. The commander-in-chief of the Salvation Army personally wrote him in 1932, which demonstrates the weight that Hopkins’ endorsement carried nationally. He continued to be an active part of the debate over the Eighteenth Amendment until its repeal. Congress even sent him an advanced copy of proposed legislation designed to cope with the imminent demise of the Eighteenth Amendment. The cover of this hand-bound tome contained the simple claim that, “The evil is not in the bottle but in the individual.” Since the College entered a new period of quasi-prohibition in 2015, the first year that hard alcohol was banned from campus, it is surprising that such sensational events as those that transpired between 1920 and 1933 have gone unmentioned. Shortly before the
end of Prohibition in 1933, Hopkins alluded to making beer more available so as to root out hard liquor, “There would seem a definite tendency for beer to replace hard liquor in undergraduate consumption and availability of beer in Hanover has seemingly quite definitely decreased the disposition of undergraduates to seek out liquor.” At stake today is more than drinking and harmful behaviors. At the core of the debate over the hard alcohol ban is personal responsibility and the degree to which morality should be legislated. President Ernest Martin Hopkins had this to say in his letter to the National Temperance Association, “Personally, I believe that whether from the social, the educational or the religious point of view, the greatest weakness in American society at the present day is the disposition of individuals to avoid responsibility and to delegate this to outside agencies, and particularly to the national government.” The Review thanks Rauner Library for the use of their assistance in locating records.
History of the Fraternities > CONTINUED FROM PAGE 8 In Chris Miller’s The Real Animal House you can see it all coming. In the Fall of 1960, his sophomore year, Miller joins Alpha Delta Phi on East Wheelock Street. This is the “Adelphian Lodge” of Animal House. On his first visit as a prospective pledge, the first man he meets sets the tone for what follows: Speakers on the balcony were blasting “Mama, He Treats Your Daughter Mean” by Ruth Brown. A big guy in Buddy Holly glasses greeted
me with a smile. “Hey! Hello! Welcome to the AD house!” he stuck out a hand to shake with me but discovered there was a can of Bud in it. “Christ!” he snorted, and smote his forehead. Curiously, he used the hand with the beer in it, which struck with a metallic glorping sound. A golden geyser fired up, spread its foamy arms, and fell back on his head. “Oops,” he said. Clearly this AD man is high on something more potent than beer. Remember, Chris Miller had arrived at
Dartmouth in 1959, and this was the fall of his 1960 sophomore year. Welcome to the Sixties. The curtain was going up on that horror show. I have quoted from Chapter Six. Hilarious stuff follows, including a lot of sex, but I won’t quote that in this family newspaper. Maybe this book is better than the movie. Ha ha! I have the only Baker-Berry copy. “Where have all the flowers gone?” Joan Baez used to sing. 1968 was forty years ago. All those people who were eighteen then are on
Social Security. We have our own un-winnable wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. But there’s no draft. And there’s no Kids baby boomer population bulge, and no Kids drugsoaked culture. It amazes me when Dartmouth athletic coaches refer to their players as “kids.” Is a 240 pound six-foot-three football lineman a “kid”? If he were in the military he could be in the Marines or the Special Forces killing terrorists. Kids! They are college men. I’ve been invited to speak
at a couple of fraternities. Recently at a house on Webster Avenue I gave a talk on the importance of the irrational in both poetry and political theory (Wordsworth and Burke). The fraternity men wore jackets and ties. Food was laid out on a buffet table. We drank a bit of beer. If I had been an undergraduate, I might have joined a club like this. I think a fraternity should be a preliminary to a good club in the city after graduation. The culture has changed a lot since the Sixties.
VERILY I SAY UNTO YOU: THOU SHALT READ THE REVIEW!
12 Wednesday – May 16, 2018
The Dartmouth Review
THE LAST WORD GORDON HAFF’S
COMPILED BY ALEXANDER RAUDA
“Inasmuch as any man drinketh wine or Strong drink “Worthless people live only to eat and drink; people of among you behold it is not good, neither mete in the sight worth eat and drink only to live.” of your Father.” -Joseph Smith, Moron –Socrates “Every form of addiction is bad, no matter whether the “Age appears to be best in four things; old wood best narcotic be alcohol or morphine or idealism.” to burn, old wine to drink, old friends to trust, and old -Carl Jung authors to read.” -Sir Francis Bacon “They who drink beer will think beer. -Washington Irving “Age appears to be best in four things; old wood best to burn, old wine to drink, old friends to trust, and old “I like whiskey. I always did, and that is why I never drink authors to read.” -Mark Twain it.” -Robert E. Lee “First you take a drink, then the drink takes a drink, then “My rule of life prescribed as an absolutely sacred rite the drink takes you.” -F. Scott Fitzgerald smoking cigars and also the drinking of alcohol before, after and if need be during all meals and in the intervals “O you who have believed, indeed, intoxicants, gambling, between them.” -Winston Churchill [sacrificing on] stone alters [to other than God], and divining arrows are but defilement from the work of Satan, “I see Americans of every party, every background, so avoid it that you may be successful.” -5:90, Mohammed, Peace and Blessings Be Upon Him every faith who believe that we are stronger together: black, white, Latino, Asian, Native American; young, old; gay, straight; men, women, folks with “A live concert to me is exciting because of all the electricity that is generated in the crowd and on stage. It’s my disabilities, all pledging allegiance under the same proud flag to this big, bold country that we love. favorite part of the business, live concerts.” -Elvis Presley That’s what I see. That’s the America I know!” -Barack Hussein Obama “A woman should never be seen eating or drinking, unless it be lobster salad and Champagne, the only true feminine ‘All parts of the human body get tired eventually and becoming viands. except the tongue.” -Lord Byron -Konrad Adenauer
BARRETT’S MIXOLOGY
“My peers, lately, have found companionship through means of intoxication - it makes them sociable. I, however, cannot force myself to use drugs to cheat on my loneliness - it is all that I have - and when the drugs and alcohol dissipate, will be all that my peers have as well.” -Franz Kafka “I’ll drink water. Sometimes tomato juice, which I like. Sometimes orange juice, which I like. I’ll drink different things. But the Coke or Pepsi boosts you up a little.” -Donald John Trump, 45th President of America “Once, during Prohibition, I was forced to live for days on nothing but food and water.” -W.C. Fields “How do I get this damn thing off?” -Dartmouth ‘21 Referring to the Green Key Wristband “Work is the curse of the drinking classes.”
“Music is the movement of sound to reach the soul for the education of its virtue.” -Plato ‘I have a reputation for drinking a lot. Indeed, I drink quite much. However, I give it up when I wish to do so. I never, ever drink while on duty. The drinking is only for my pleasure. I do not remember neglecting my duties because of drinking even once. -Mustafa Kemal Ataturk
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Green Key Ingredients
Keystone Cheap vodka Body Glitter for #aesthetic Beautiful wristbands found in Hinman with FOOLPROOF directions on the envelope They came slowly, and then all at once. Once upon a time—in a galaxy far, far away—there was once a dream. A dream of an alternative social space filled with music, puppies, rainbows, and fanny packs. With his long, flowing mustache hairs and his beautiful, vaguely-gray eyes, Prince Philip J. Hanlon was not a man to sit idly by while his kingdom did suffer from a lack of wholesome entertainment. “Please sir, may I have some more college sponsored Green Key festivities?” whimpered his small peasants Amidst the chaos of the Noble Knights of Theta Delt’s Pig Roast, the thunderous Block Party hosted by the Lords of the Order of Phi Delta Alpha, and the bawdy bashes bought by the Baronets of Psi Upsilon arose a shining beacon of light. On the Coast of Gold in the year 2013 there was a concert, open to all of Hanlon’s realm. And the peasants rejoiced! And then on the porch of Collis— more music! Free to all, closed to none and in the open space. But with this heavenly paradise arose a horrible, awful cost. Slowly they came one by one, and two by two, and three by three, and four by more until the Coast of Gold was filled with the undead terrors of children from the neighboring realm of Hangover High. From smiling cherubs they did transform into undead terrors. Ghoulish bodies held up by horrified friends absolutely done with their shit filled to the brim with Keystone and Popov, covered in body glitter, and armed with fake student IDs. Their existence and intoxication both highly illegal, blood replaced with liquor these poor children had never been sicker. The Guardians of Green Mountain and the Soldiers of Safety and Security tried with all their might to hold back these zombies. But, alas, there were too many. And in their great numbers they threatened the paradise posed by the music of Collis. The Board of Programming went to their great King of Collis, and with their combined magical powers of programming they came up with a system to prevent Satan’s spawn from ruining the concert. “Wristbands!” they cried, “How effortlessly simple! We’ll simply mark students with these colorful, easily washable, comfortable wristbands, and allow them guests!” And the wristbands did afford Prince Phillip’s peasants with protection. And large swaths of childish zombies were driven away from the music, forced to listen from afar— which of course they could do because you can hear the giant speakers from literally all the way across campus. But still some peasants used dark magic to create a black market for wristbands, allowing in these drunken demons and once again threatening the safety of our euphonious paradise. Oh, the horror! The horror!
— Scotch Cara
-Oscar Wilde