Swarthmore College Alumni Bulletin 1942-01-01

the garnet
Volume VI

Number 2

January, 1942

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ALUMNI WEEKEND AT BUEKHILL
HP HE IN N at Buck
_L Hill Falls will
again be the site of
Swarthmore’s MidWinter House Party
to be held on Feb­
ruary 6, 7, and 8.
Fourteen years ago a
group of undergrad­
uates began the now
traditional w i n t e r
weekend vacation in
the Poconos. Since
then a party of
Swarthmoreans has
made this pilgrim.age each year to pay
homage to the gods
of skiing, tobaggoning, skating, dogsled riding, etc.

High Rocks to the twelfth hole on the golf course, has been
developed for expert skiers, while the Red and Blue trails
have been placed in excellent condition by widening and
unbrushing for use by all types of skiers.
The ice toboggan chute at Deer Lake has been length­
ened, making the ride down Chestnut Mountain and out over
the Lake a longer, steeper and faster one than ever before,
while the road to the Lake has been widened, and parking
facilities near the ski slopes and trails have been extensively
enlarged.

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The team of huskies, known nationally for their rescue
work at Westport, Connecticut several years ago, are being
trained by Stanley Bender for the houseparty weekend, and
passengers will enjoy thrilling dogsled rides over snowcovered roads and trails throughout the 4000-acre estate.
The Ski Lodge, located in The Inn, holds many sur­
prises in store for Swarthmore wintef sports devotees, for it
has made a number of improvements to its facilities, including
the addition of a special waxing room.

This year the party takes on an 'official Alumni flavor’
for the first time. At a recent meeting of the Joint Coun­
cils the House Party was endorsed as an authorized Alumni
function.
Faculty and students will turn out in good
numbers and here is the ideal opportunity for Swarthmoreans
to take a joint holiday free from the everyday routine of a
troubled world.
Indoors there are to be talking pictures of latest release,
on both Friday and Saturday evenings, a chat by the fireside
on ski instruction by The Buck Hill Ski School’s two instruc­
tors on Friday night and dancing Saturday evening in the
South Lounge with Junior Maguire and his popular elevenpiece Orchestra furnishing tuneful melodies for the occasion.
- Ski enthusiasts will welcome the news that a new fifteen
hundred foot tow is now in operation and provides ideal
skiing on the slopes of Camel Back Hill as well as on the
fifteenth, sixteenth and eighteenth fairways of the 27-hole
golf course, while the 1100-foot tow on Swarthmore Hill,
familiar to all Swarthmoreans as a popular skiing center, is
also in operation this year, making two tows to help devotees
of the sport up the hills and thus enable them to enjoy a
longer day of activity.
The Orange Trail, a new, four-mile downhill run from

Non-skiers can learn, and proficient skiers can improve
their technique, thru the expert instruction offered at The
Buck Hill Ski School by Miss Emily Barclay, a graduate of
____________________Middlebury College,
Vermont, and Mr.
38*”
Russell Geller, pastpresident of the
Poco Ski Club, who
is now director of
the Division of Phys­
ical Fitness of the
U. S. Office of Ch
vilian Defense in the
Philadelphia area.
The outdoor bar­
becue, one of the
outstanding s o c i a l
events of the houseparty weekend, is to
BP
take place at mid­
night, on Friday.
Make your reser­
vations at the Alum­
ni Office not later
than February 4.

ALUMNI RATES FOR BUCK HILL HOUSE PARTY—American Plan
Single room, running water ............ $ 6.50 and $ 7.00
Single room, with toilet ................

7.50

Single room, private bath ............

8.00 and

Double room, running water ........$13.00
Double room, with toilet .............. 14.00

9.00

Double room, private bath ............ 15.00 to

$18.00

Extra person in room— $6.00

E n te re d a s s e c o n d -c la ss m a tte r J a n u a ry 10, 1941, a t th e p o st office a t S w a rth m o re, P e n n s y lv a n ia , u n d e r th e Act of A u g u st 24, 1912.
F ro nt C o v er P hoto b y T ed G o o d m a n , '43

. . from the President . . . .
E ARE at war. Those
who knew Swarthmore
in 1917 and 1918 will know
that that means a profound
dislocation for the college. It
was bad enough then, but
this is worse. We live to­
day in the midst of total war
which affects every person,
every institution, every aspect
of our normal lives. "Busi­
ness as usual” is as obsolete
for colleges as it is for auto­
mobile manufacturers. The
college faces new problems
of utmost gravity and with
very little precedent for guide. I am not exaggerating when
I say that the future of the college depends upon the wisdom
and the courage with which we face these problems,—the
collective wisdom and the shared courage of all who feel any
concern for Swarthmore.
The most immediate problem is posed by the men who
are destined to enter the armed forces. The draft age has
been set at 20. It is more than probable that it will be
lowered to 19 before the war is over. Some men have
already volunteered; some have been drafted. As yet the
numbers are not large, but they will mount at a disturbing
rate. One important step has already been taken. The board
and faculty have decided to operate the college on a year
’round basis. For the first time in the history of the college
we shall be in session in the summer. By the addition of a
third semester between June and September, it will be possible
for students to graduate in three years or even less. Present
juniors will be able to complete their eight semesters by
Christmas 1942, and present sophomores can, if they wish,
graduate in late August, 1943. We are under no illusion
that a college education crammed into three years will be as
good as the regular four-year program. But it will be better
than one-half or three-fourths of the pre-war course of
studies. If ever a college education has value, it is in time
of war. I am thinking less at the moment of the technical
training useful for military purposes than of the basic char­
acter of a liberal education. The insights, the understand­
ing, the values of educated people are at a premium now.
The college has a responsibility to make intelligent human
beings out of the material from which armies and navies are
fashioned. A three-year program must be optional. Not
all men will want to accelerate their course of study. There
will be some who cannot afford to do so. While we anticipate
that many of the women will want to graduate as early as
possible, they are not yet under the same pressures as the
men.
A second problem concerns the program of instruction.
There are certain courses which have a high utilitarian value
in time of war. All work in engineering is of this kind.
So also are courses in mathematics, physics, chemistry, astron­
omy, psychology, and economics, to mention the more
obvious. Both the army and the navy need men with a
speaking knowledge of a foreign language. Familiarity with
such things as carburetors, distributers, transmission sys­
tems, and the like may mean the difference between life and
death to those who have to repair trucks, jeeps, or tanks

W

without benefit of a garage around the corner. A committee
of the faculty has been studying this problem. We plan to
introduce within the curriculum or on an extra-curricular
basis new courses and modifications of old courses to meet
the new needs. There will be many shifts in program and
these will put a strain on adequate instruction. The govern­
ment is not making a solution easy by calling to Washington
members of the faculties in just those fields where the load
of instruction will be greatest. Six have already gone, and
the departure of others is imminent.
t
It would not become a Quaker college to adjust its
program to war-time needs without making equal or greater
provision for the non-combatant activities so close to the
enduring work of the Society of Friends. There are many
ways of contributing to the present emergency. We should
be forgetting half the student body and disregarding the
convictions and talents of others if we did not plan for the
relief of suffering, the binding up of wounds, both human
and national, the gigantic task of reconstruction. W e should
be forfeiting our heritage and our opportunity if we did
not emphasize the training of men and women with vision
and good-will. The present crisis is grave, but that of the
post-war world will be even graver. This task also calls for
new adjustment within and without the curriculum. And
what is more, the training of men and women to be useful
in a future world demands imagination on the part of those
who do the training.
These problems are chiefly concerned with what the
college can do. There is also the question of what the war
will do to the college. It will do a number of things, all
of them unpleasant. Indeed, the process has already begun.
We shall lose men. They are going to war, into defensive
industries, and into the graduate and professional schools
which are coming out with attractive offers to men without
an undergraduate degree. W e can meet this situation in part
by accepting more women. That will help, but it will not
solve the problem. On the one hand, we face a shrinking
enrolment, how great and how rapid no one can tell. On
the other hand, we face the rising costs of nearly everything
we need to run the college. Either alternative would be
awkward—to use a mild word—for a college which operates
on a nicely balanced budget of income and expenses. The
two together create an almost desperate problem of making
ends meet.
And on top of that comes the third semester. Even if
all students were to take the accelerated program and could
pay the full charges for tuition and other expenses, there
is no way as yet devised for wringing an additional 50%
from the endowment funds. Roughly half the cost of a
Swarthmore student’s education, exclusive of board and
room, is covered by income from endowment; half is paid
by the student in tuition and other fees. The same amount
of income from endowment will now have to be spread over
three semesters instead of two. The assumption made at the
beginning of this paragraph is, of course, inadmissible. Many
students, or their parents, cannot afford to pay for education
half again as much in any calendar year. While the total
cost of education would not be increased, the charges would
fall within three income-producing years instead of four. And
many students use the summer vacation for earning enough
additional money to see them through the two semesters of
( Continued on Page 8)

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SWARTHMORE'S ALUMNI FUND
By AMOS J. PEASLEE
President, Swarthmore College Alumni Association

S SWARTHMORE
ALUMNI last year, we
inaugurated the custom of
annual contributions for the
support of our Alma Mater.
It is a custom long honored
by many colleges in America.

A

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Charles E. Rickards — so known to his parents, but
Chink to us — has accepted the general chairmanship of
the Alumni Fund for this year. He was the president of his
Class in 1927. He is a distinguished Swarthmorean and is
the immediate past president of the Swarthmore Club of
Philadelphia. He has a record of accomplishment as Assist­
ant Actuary of the Penn Mutual Life Insurance Company of
Philadelphia. We salute him and pledge our support.

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$17,454.00 was contributed
by 1750 loyal Swarthmoreans
in 1941. We hope and ex­
pect that those amounts will
be repeated or increased this
year.
Swarthmore has, in all, about 6700 alumni and ex­
students. There are many who have not yet availed them­
selves of this opportunity to be of service to the College. An
all important era lies ahead. It is an all-out effort for
Swarthmore.
Each $10,000 contributed to the Fund annually is
equivalent to the income from a quarter of a million dollars
of additional endowment invested at 4 per cent. Your co-op­
eration will be a fitting demonstration of your approval of
John Nason’s administration.

Frank D ’Olier gave the fund a magnificent inauguration.
His own class, 1907, led the percentage of contributors
throughout most of the campaign last year and finished with
the remarkable record of 67.8% of contributing graduates
and 56.6% of total graduates and ex-students. It was nosed
out at the finish by 1916 with 80.2%, of contributing gradu­
ates and 59.0% of the total class. The Class of 1916 also
led in total contributions of $1346.
The Alumni Fund should have 100% support from
every alumnus and ex-student of the college. Your con­
tribution, whether it be large or small will — with the spirit'
of loyalty and affection for Swarthmore which goes with it,
be most gratefully received by the Alumni Association and
College. Please give the committee a whole-hearted re­
sponse, for the honor of your Class, and for the building
ever of finer accomplishments and standards for Swarthmore
College. Your total debt of gratitude can never be repaid.

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WAR CHANGES
Three faculty members and one administrative officer
have just been granted leaves of absence from the College
because of the war emergency. Robert MacLeod, Chairman
of the Psychology Department, will be on leave the second
semester to work in Washington with the Bureau of Agri­
cultural Economics, Division of Program Surveys. Also serv­
ing with him in this Division will be Richard Crutchfield,
Assistant Professor of Psychology, who has been granted
partial leave, returning to the campus for weekly seminars.
No additional appointments are to be made in the Psy­
chology Department, for Edwin Newman will be acting
Chairman, and Professor Wolfgang Kohler has cancelled his
scheduled leave. Mr. Newman is returning from a year’s ab­
sence during which he has directed a civilian service camp
in California.
The Chemistry Department has likewise been affected by
the withdrawal of Samuel R. Aspinall, Instructor, who will
work in the Office of Scientific Research and Development in
Washington. He has been replaced by Howard Potter, who
received his Phd. -from Harvard University, and who comes
to us from the Michigan Department of Agriculture.
The College Physician for Men, Paul T. Strong, ’30,

is leaving for active army service as captain in the 52nd
Evacuation Hospital, a unit organized last year at the University of Pennsylvania Hospital. Dr. Strong’s position at the
College is being filled by Dr. Morris Bowie, of Bryn Mawr.

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Frances Reinhold Fussell, ’32, has resigned her position
as Instructor in Political Science. She is now in Washington
working with the Office of Production Management. For the
past year Howard M. Jenkins, ’20, Associate Professor of
Electrical Engineering, has been working for the Government
with the Navy Department as a Civilian Expert.
It is known that before the printer’s ink is dry on your.
Garnet Letter several others members of the faculty will
have been called for Government Service, but definite information is not now available. Many of the professors
remaining on the campus are combining defense work with
regular classroom duties.
A drastic change in the College Calendar has been
decided upon by the faculty and the Board of Managers.
Although exact details are not yet worked out, the dates have
been set for the next semester (see calendar below). In anti­
cipation of the first summer session in the history of the

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letter

DUR GOAL - YOUR CONTRIBUTION
By CHARLES E. RICKARDS
General Chairman, 1942 Alumni Fund

P WARTHMORE as it is
J today has been vividly
described by President John
Nason on another page of
the Garnet Letter.
No
one can read this ac­
count without being proud of
the college for the way it
has prepared to adjust itself
to present emergencies. Of
equal significance is the state­
ment that Swarthmore needs
help to meet the problems
which face it now and which
will face it in the immediate
future. It seems particularly
appropriate, therefore, that
the Joint Councils of the Alumni Association are continuing
the plan of Annual Giving which was so successfully begun
last year.
Let us review the situation briefly. Swarthmore is neither
a rich college nor a poor college. On the basis of endow­
ment per student we stand about half way between these
extremes. Last year the income from endowment represented
a high rate of return (4.3 per cent net) in relation to the
experience of other educational and fiduciary institutions.
Nevertheless, the total amount was $14,500 less than in 1940.
Present indications are that there will be a further decrease
of approximately $15,000 for the college year ending June
30, 1942.
The decline in endowment income is only one of
Swarthmore’s numerous problems to which John Nason

refers. A serious reduction in operating income due to de­
creased student enrolment, an abnormal rise in maintenance
costs, and the financial difficulties encountered in stretching
the endowment income to cover three semesters a year instead
of two are but a few of the additional problems. ^Ve need
go no further to demonstrate how significant the $17,454
contributed by the alumni through the 1941 Fund has been
during the current year, and how important the 1942 Fund
contributions will be.
We recognize, of course, that each of us is facing new
problems and increased burdens during the coming year.
Many demands will be made upon our financial resources.
We urge strongly, however, that you give evidence of your
pride in and loyalty to Swarthmore by contributing to the
Alumni Fund this year. Our goal is not to be expressed in
dollars. W hat we want is a pledge from EACH alumnus
who is able to contribute. No amount is too small. Last
year 27.3% of all alumni and 36.6% of the graduates gave
financial support to the college through the Alumni Fund.
It is our hope that these percentages may be substantially
increased this year.
Our plans for conducting this year’s fund are not
elaborate ones. In fact, we hope to complete our job as
simply and quickly as possible. To this end we are enclosing
with this Garnet Letter a pledge card. It will help us
greatly if you will fill this out and mail it immediately.
While you’re about it why not enclose your contribution at
the same time?
Checks should be made payable to
SWARTHMORE COLLEGE. You realize, of course, that
these contributions are allowable deductions in computing
Federal Income Tax.

W AR CHANGES (Continued)
College the Administration is considering a plan of co-opera­
tion with Bryn Mawr and Haverford whereby their combined
facilities might be merged for the summer semester.
A special faculty committee has been formed to make
provisions for the granting of degrees during the emer­
gency. It has been recommended that any student, drafted
after the completion of the first semester of his senior year,
be granted his degree; also that any student drafted be given
full credit for the interrupted semester, provided, in both
cases, that the student’s work is in good standing. This
recommendation does not apply to students who volunteer.
Since the beginning of the school year five men students
have withdrawn, one of whom was drafted. This number
will, of course, increase considerably in the next few months.
Under the auspices of the Engineering Science Manage­
ment Defense Training program, four extra-curricular courses
will be offered by the faculty of the College to students and
residents of the town of Swarthmore. These courses are in
radio engineering, engineering mathematics and drawing,

physics, and chemistry. The Mathematics Department is offer­
ing to juniors and seniors a special course designed to meet
some of the requirements of the Navy Department, and a
faculty committee is considering other desirable new courses.
Countless changes and adjustments are being made in every
effort to meet the abnormal conditions of a war period, and
yet preserve the basic ideals of a college of liberal arts. This
is a difficult task.

REVISED COLLEGE CALENDAR
Midyear Examination Period ................. January 2 6 -3 1
Second Semester Begins ................................. February 2
Spring Vacation .........................................March 21 -30
Final Examinations ................................... May 1 3 -1 9
ALUMNI D A Y .................................................. M A Y 23
Commencement............................................May 23 or 26

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BOARD APPROVES OFFICIAL ALUMNI REPRESENTATION
Hilda Lang Denworth, 17, First Woman to be Chosen
7\ T THE October
i l meeting of the
Board of Managers of
Swarthmore College a
r e s o l u t i o n wa s
adopted whereby the
Alumni will be asked
to name an official
representative to the
Borrd each year, such
representative to serve
a four year term. In
order to incorporate
this new plan without
waiting four years for
four vacancies to oc­
cur, it was decided by
the Board that inasm u c h as Edward
Pennock Palmer, ’06,
and T h o m a s B .
McCabe, T5, h a d
been nominated by
the Alumni Council
for membe ship on
the Board, they are
to be considered the
H ilda Lang D enw orth
official alumni repre­
sentatives f o r the
duration of their term of service with that body. Their terms
will expire in December 1943.
The other two alumni representatives are to be women.
The Board asked the Alumni Council to present the name
of an alumna to be elected at the annual Board meeting in
December. Amos Peaslee, ’07, appointed a Nominating
Committee with Nan Oppenlander Eberle, T3, as Chairman,
and the Alumni Council as a whole voted on the two can­
didates suggested.
As a result, Hilda Lang Denworth, T7, was proposed
as the official alumna representative, and duly elected by the
Board to serve a four year term. The second woman repre­
sentative will be chosen in December of 1942.
Hilda Lang Denworth’s activities are varied, but educa­
tion in many phases is undoubtedly her greatest interest.
After graduation from Swarthmore in 1917 she studied at
Wisconsin, Columbia, and the University of Pennsylvania,
where she received the Masters degree in 1921. The follow­
ing year she was Instructor in German at Swarthmore.
Now married to Raymond K. Denworth, living in
Swarthmore, and the mother of four children, Hilda manages
an amazing number of committee and board chairmanships.
She has served the Philadelphia School of Occupational Ther­
apy as a member of the Board of Directors, as Chairman of
Personnel, as member of the Executive and Curriculum Com­
mittees, and as Chairman of a committee which has just

completed a study with the School of Education of the Uni­
versity of Pennsylvania. The successful result of this study
is an affiliation between the School of Occupational Therapy
and the University.
The mothers of Swarthmore consult Hilda Denworth
in many matters of education for their youngsters. Her official
position on the School Board, as Secretary and Chairman of
Public Relations, is partially responsible, but she also is
known as a person of good judgment, clear thinking, and
a wide knowledge of modern educational methods. Her civic
activities are not limited to the school however, for she is
on the Board of the Swarthmore League of Women Voters,
and Chairman of the Swarthmore Junior Red Cross. For
the College, she is a member of the Alumni Council, and
one of two non-faculty members serving on the Admissions
Committee for Women.
These honors and duties have been awarded to Hilda
Lang Denworth because of her very apparent ability, her
loyalty, and her willingness to devote herself unselfishly to
the tasks assigned to her. Appraising all of these qualifica­
tions, the Alumni Council chose her to represent the entire
Alumni Association on the Board of Managers of the College.

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Two prominent alumni were elected by the Board to
serve the unexpired terms of Edward M. Bassett, ’05, and
Hugh F. Denworth, ’16. They are Boyd T. Barnard, ’17 and
Theodore Widing, ’28.
Boyd Barnard is a member of the Jackson Cross Com­
pany, real estate brokers, of Philadelphia, and as such makes
appraisments for many of the major financial institutions in
the city. His knowledge and judgment is respected not only
by his business associates, but by his fellow Swarthmoreans
as well. Last year he was asked to serve as Chairman of the
Special Gifts Committee for the annual Alumni Fund. The
results of that campaign are evidence of his success. He is
at present a member of the recently appointed alumni com­
mittee on Engineering, and an active member of the Alumni
Association. His wife, Ruth Cross, was a graduate in the
Class of 1917. They have two children and live at 528
Lafayette Road, Merion, Pa.
Ted Widing has had spectacular success in his profession
of writing life insurance for the Provident Mutual Life
Insurance Company. In 1938, 1939, 1940 and 1941 he led all
agents in that company in new business. Life membership
in the Million Dollar Round Table is granted only to those
who have written a million dollars worth of life insurance,
or more, in three successive years — and Ted is a life
member. He and his wife, Esther Wilson, ’28, are active
members of the Swarthmore Monthly Meeting of Friends,
and, with their three sons, live in Moylan, Pa.

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VARSITY SW A R TH M D R EA N S
"Varsity Swarthmoreans” is an attempt to focus your .attention on some of our fellow
alumni who are doing a commendable job in the game of life. This feature will be
repeated from time to time, and we invite nominations from Garnet Letter readers.
"Standing i n t h e
doorway of the Na­
tional Theatre a few
nights ago, watching
the audience leave, we
heard a young snob
near us exclaim: 'Let us
go now, Tom! W e’ve
seen all the ladies. The
rest of these women are
only Treasury Clerks!’
The remark affected us
unpleasantly, and we
could not help asking
ourself: 'Are not the
Treasury Clerks ladies?’
The majority of them
are, but it is a melan­
A n n a M. M ichener , ’16
choly fact that they are
looked down upon by
Washingtonians as be­
ing of a lower order. There are about 600 female clerks
in the service of the Government in Washington. Their
positions are not to be envied, and ought to be shunned by
women who can obtain honest employment elsewhere.’’
—The quotation is from Sights and Secrets of the
National Capital, published in 1869. This sprightly volume
occupies an honored position in the well-stocked library of
one of the Treasury Department’s present administrative offi­
cers—the Assistant to the Director of the Division of Re­
search and Statistics, Anna M. Michener, Swarthmore T 6.
(Yes, T6 in the official college records, despite the feeling
of many ’17ers that Mich rightfully belongs to them because
she entered with their class.)
It is a long jump from the despised lot of 1869’s
"female Treasury clerks” to Anna Michener’s highly respon­
sible job of conducting part of the fundamental research
upon which the United States Government’s revenue estimates
are based. Not only now in wartime but for several years
past it has been an extremely busy job, too, with office work
making heavy inroads into evenings and week-ends and
vacations. In the case of Mich this is no minor deprivation,
either, for she was'raised in the country and still looks on
life in the city'as only half-way living. Give her a week-end
or a week free from figures or departmental cares or social
obligations or apartment-keeping chores, and she’ll garb
herself in breeches, moccasins, and leather jacket, toss a
forty-pound pack lightly on her back, and be off for a crack
at a mountain top or a plunge into the wilderness, the brierier
the better. In her New York days she was one of the
mainstays of the Green Mountain Club, and in Washington
her allegiance has been transferred to the Appalachian Trail
Club.
With such energetic spare time pursuits serving effec­
tively to sublimate the Daniel Boone side of her character
( Continued on Page 8)

If Lloyd Lewis has ever been tired no one has ever
known about it. Keeping up with the pace he sets for
himself would leave ordinary humans exhausted after a few
months, but Lewis has been living at a strenuous tempo ever
since collecting his sheepskin from President Swain in 191 \
and today sparkles with an alert energy, at once charming
and challenging. An unflagging capacity for hard work
combined with a versatile talent has enabled him all at the
same time to be sports editor and daily columnist for the
Chicago Daily News, to act as its drama critic, and to gain
a national reputation as author and historian. You can ask
him about Dizzy Dean, Ethel Barrymore, or President Lincoln,
and he will talk quickly, pointedly, persuasively about any
of them. His interest and enthusiasms are contagious, his
information voluminous.
In college the higher learning received benefit of only
the side currents of his energy, its main stream being directed
into publications. The Phoenix flourished under his editor­
ship, and so vivid was his reporting of football that it
attracted the notice of the editor of the Penrose-hating Phila­
delphia North American, who offered him a job.
Before going to work for the paper, he had to go back
to help shock wheat on the farm in Indiana. Swarthmore
and the home of his parents in Pendleton were far apart on
the map but close in tradition. Both his father and mother
were Hicksite Friends, as their families had been for genera­
tions before them. The influence of that liberal tradition
is evident today in Lewis’s view of the world.
He worked on the North American as feature writer
and reviewer of "second shows” for two years, but hope and
opportunity lay in the west, and in response to an offer from
James Keeley, hero of the young newspapermen at that time,
Lewis went to work for
t h e Chicago Herald.
One morning in the
Sunday section of the
rival Chicago Tribune
he saw a poem that
knocked his eye out.
He gave the author a
ring, and from that call
dates a friendship with
Carl Sandburg, enliv­
ened by their common
interest in Lincoln.
Other young men
later to be famous were
his friends in Chicago.
John Lomax, having de­
nounced Governor Fer­
guson of Texas, was
L loyd L ew is , T3
hiding out from Gov­
ernor Ferguson’s wrath
and working for a brokerage firm, collecting American
ballads in his spare time. Ben Hecht was doing his
( Continued on Page 8)

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FROM THE PRESIDENT

( Continued from. Page 7)
daily bit for the News. Tom Peete Cross, professor at the
University, was making his reputation as a scholar. During
a stint in the Navy in 1918 Lewis met humorist Donald
Ogden Stewart and persuaded him to write parodies which
were used in connection with the Navy program.
During the ’20’s Lewis directed his forces into adver­
tising and publicity. His work as press agent ranged from
theaters to evangelists, from moving pictures to state teacher
associations, from steamship lines to charity drives. Somehow
while doing all this he managed to spend part of each
summer in Colorado helping a partner operate their huge
sheep ranch.
The publicity work for the theaters and a lifelong inter­
est in the stage led naturally to his association with the News
as drama critic in 1930. A few years later, when the sports
page was sagging, the editor turned to Lewis to give it new
life. Lewis, with his gift for seeing the dramatic instead
of just muscle and sweat, put wallop into the section. Today
his column The Voice from the Grandstand” receives a
steady stream of eager and sometimes belligerent correspond­
ence from its wide audience.
Probably his most lasting contribution is his work as
author and historian.
The recent choice by Fadiman,
Woollcott, Sinclair Lewis, and Carl Van Doren of his Myths
After Lincoln for The Reader’s Club speaks for itself. His
literary work shows characteristic versatility. He has collab­
orated with Sinclair Lewis on a civil war play, has written
on Chicago, General Sherman (the definitive biography), and
Oscar Wilde and America. His enthusiasm and ability as
a historian have won him wide recognition. A few years
ago he acted as lecturer in history at the University of
Chicago, and the story goes that efforts were made at the
time to persuade him to leave newspaper work to join the
history faculty. He is President of the Friends of the Library
at the University, and trustee of the Illinois State Historical
Library.
His newest book, John S. Wright; Prophet of the
Prairies has just appeared. The subject is indicative of the
author. Whight was a middle westerner, a fighting reformer,
a lover of democracy.' Lewis himself by background and
enthusiasms is midwestern to the core. He has written
brilliantly of midwest heroes, of Illinois’ Lincoln and Ohio’s
Sherman and Grant. He has collaborated in writing a best­
selling history of the midwest’s capital, Chicago. Two of his
close friends and idols, Carl Sandburg and Frank Lloyd
Wright, are thoroughly midwestern. He and his wife live
in a prairie house built for them by Wright. He regards
the midwest still as the land of hope and opportunity. By
no stretch of working could one call Lewis a reformer, and
he would probably wince at the mere idea. But he is an
ardent lover of Democracy, a fighter, without political
aspirations, for the good of The People, a man who since
1932 has freely volunteered his invaluable services as writer
and speaker for the causes in which he believes.
"O. K.,” Lloyd Lewis would be likely to say at this
point, "let’s get back to Zorina, and the Chicago Bears.”
FRANKLIN PORTER, ’33

( Continued from Page 3)
a normal program. For them the accelerated course would be
doubly difficult, if not impossible. Greatly increased scholar­
ship aid will have to be given if many are to make use of
the summer term. And this must be managed with rising
costs of operation, decreasing return on endowment, and
rapidly decreasing income from students as a result of falling
enrolment.
^It: ls not a pleasant prospect. You will understand why
I said at the beginning that the future of the college depends
on how we all of us—face and solve the problems that lie
ahead. For us the words of the popular English song might
be paraphrased to read, There shall always be a Swarthmore.” If we face our problems honestly, with resolute
courage, there will be. But we must pull together.

MICHENER
( Continued from Page 7)
and to reconcile her to the necessity of city living, she has
shown remarkable directness and tenacity of purpose in
carving out her career. From college she went to Columbia
University, where Swarthmore’s Lucretia Mott Fellowship and
a variety of part-time and full-time jobs at the University
and the Bureau of Municipal Research sustained her while
she earned her master s and doctor’s degrees. Then came
nine years of business and commodity research with the
National Bank of Commerce in New York, followed by a
year as associate editor of the New York Journal of
Commerce, and she was ready for the Washington plunge.
Her first government position was with the Economics
Division of the Federal Farm Board. From there she went
to the Reconstruction Finance Corporation and the Farm
Credit Administration before being appointed in 1934 to the
Treasury Department s Division of Research and Statistics.
Mich insists that she has had absolutely nothing to do
with thinking up the manifold taxes which now confront
us all. But when it comes to telling precisely what she
does do in her capacity as assistant to the division’s director,
this reporter will have to beg off. Anyone who knew Anna
Michener in college will remember that although she did
enough to keep two people busy it was almost impossible to
get her to talk about herself. Well, she hasn’t changed;
she’s still the same.
FRANCES WILLIAMS BROWIN, ’19

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COLLEGE ORGANIZATION FOR CIVILIAN DEFENSE
By PHILIP M. HICKS, Chairman, Central Executive Committee

N DECEMBER 11, 1941, at the
request of the College Council
of the Pennsylvania State Council
of Civilian Defense, President
Nason appointed a Central Execu­
tive Committee, consisting of ten
members from the faculty and ad­
ministration and ten from the stu­
dent body, to direct and unify the
emergency precautions taken by the
college and to integrate them with
similar measures adopted by the
borough of Swarthmore and the Delaware county defense
organization.
At the same time seven sub-committees were also
appointed by the President to direct the various phases of
emergency defense under the jurisdiction of the central com­
mittee. These sub-committees are also composed of members
drawn from the faculty, the administration and the student
body.
The Air Raid Warning Committee, Mr. N. O. Pittenger,
Chairman, is in charge of the designation of wardens for the
various dormitories and the issuance of instructions for
procedure in the event of an alarm and the selection of places
of the greatest comparative safety within the buildings.
The Black-Out Committee, George C. Bond, 1942,
Chairman, has appointed student inspectors charged with the
extinguishing of lights on the campus and in instructional
buildings. Trial blackouts have been held very successfully
for the dormitories and recommendations made for the pur­
chase of materials in the few instances where additional
precaution seemed advisable.
The Fire Protection Committee, Mr. Norris Jones,
Chairman, is studying the fire hazards peculiar to each build­
ing on the campus for the purpose of recommending the
most efficient means of reducing the hazard and of protecting
the buildings in case of hre. It is also planning the enlist­
ment of student and faculty volunteer firemen to assist the
Swarthmore Fire Company and the Swarthmore College Fire
Brigade organized by Superintendant Simpson among the
employees of the college. It is expected that plans for the
training of such volunteers will shortly be worked out.
The Committee on the Preservation of Property, Dr.
Laurence Irving, Chairman, has requested the chairmen of

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each department of instruction in the college to consider the
problems of storage and salvage, in the event of damage to
buildings, of especially valuable items of equipment and to
designate members of the departmental staffs who shall be
responsible for carrying out the measures adopted.
The Committee on Medical Aid, Dr. C. Brooke Worth,
Chairman, working in close co-operation with a similar
committee of the borough physicians and with the nearby
hospitals, has perfected plans for the conversion of the two
college infirmaries into first aid stations, for the establishment
in conjunction with the borough of a station in the prepara­
tory school buildings, and the possible establishment of a
fourth station in the basement of the Martin Building. The
hospitals are co-operating in the matter of supplies and
equipment and arrangements have been completed whereby
members of the college group who desire to do so can give
blood for the preparation of plasma for storage. Arrange­
ments are also being made for the use of space in the college
buildings and the supplying of the maximum number of
beds and cots available in the event of any sudden emergency
in the Chester district.
The Committee on the Emergency Use of Buildings,
Dr. Robert K. Enders, Chairman, is working in close co-opera­
tion with the Committee on Medical Aid in determining
sites for the facilities that have just been outlined and is
making a somewhat broader survey of the emergency housing
situation as well.
The Committee on Defense Activities, Dr. J. Roland
Pennock, Chairman, is at present offering a course in first
aid training given by Dr. Dorothy Ashton. It is expected
that this course will be repeated at least twice during the
remainder of the college year. Other courses under con­
sideration are Canteen Service, Nurses Aid, Motor Mechanics,
Surgical Dressings and Navigation.
The attitude of these various committees is not one of
alarm over immediately pending danger. The college has
desired to take every possible precaution for the safety of its
students and to be prepared to co-operate fully with the
community of which it is a part should necessity arise. To
this end it has seemed wise to inaugurate a thorough study
of the measures that might be demanded in a sudden emer­
gency, to take such steps in preparation thereof as seem
immediately required and to be organized for prompt and
efficient action should the occasion occur.

SUPPORT YOUR ALUMNI FUND
THE COMMITTEE
CHARLES E. RICKARDS, ’27, Chairman
FRANK H. GRIFFIN, ’10

ELLEN FERNON REISNER, ’31

W. STAUNTON MOYLAN, ’21

NORA STABLER WORTH, ’03

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NEW YORK AND PHILA. ALUMNI CLUBS ACTIVE
NEW YORK ALUMNAE CLUB

PHILADELPHIA ALUMNAE CLUB

The annual Luncheon of the Swarthmore Women’s club
of New York was held on December 6 at Stouifer’s restaur­
ant in New York City. There was no regular business
meeting but lots of interesting entertainment. Mrs. Roberts
of the Philadelphia Club spoke, so did Dean Blanchard,
Jane Vogt 42 and Mary Hornaday ’27, who gave a most
amusing account of some of her experiences as a newspaper
woman in Washington.

To date the activities of the Philadelphia Alumnae Club
of Swarthmore have been centered in a Dessert Bridge
Party held in Bond Memorial on December 2 for the benefit
of the Alumnae Club Scholarship Fund. Approximately
one hundred and seventy persons attended, and $265.71 was
cleared from the sale of tickets, the bake table and donations.
The Club treasury has had an income of $388.71 so far this
year, $123.00 of this sum representing dues. As the Club
contributes $350.00 yearly to the Scholarship Fund, awarded
each year to an incoming Freshman on the same basis as the
Open Scholarships, a portion of each member’s dues as well
as the proceeds of the Bridge Party, goes to this Fund.

The club is going to run a fashion show in the spring
to raise money for the scholarship fund. Auguste Knaur
15 is in charge. There will also be a business meeting in
the spring.
We would like to remind the most recent graduates that
those living in our vicinity may come to our meetings for
the one year following graduation without paying dues. And
may we have any changes in address for our files.
ELIZABETH VAUGHAN BERRY, ’28
Secretary-Treasurer

SWARTHMORE CLUB OF NEW YORK
The Swarthmore Men’s Club of New York held its
yearly business meeting at the Shelton Hotel on December
eleventh. Thirty members of the local alumni attended, and
enjoyed one of the most interesting meetings the club has
had for some time.
Amos Peaslee, 07, gave the club a graphic and stimu­
lating talk on his experiences during and after the war of
1914-18, and drew inferences for our contemporary prob­
lems that unquestionably will be of great value to those of
us who were fortunate enough to hear him.
Another feature of the meeting was the report of the
committee that visited the College last spring, and visiting
classes and seminars as well as associating with the students
in their social life. This report was received most enthusi­
astically, and the members present were unanimous in their
feelings that similar relationships and activities should be
carried on by the Club in connection with the College.

0c

N.

MABEL CLEMENT LEE, ’34
Secretary

SWARTHMORE CLUB OF PHILADELPHIA
The Philadelphia Club established a precedent this year
which may become part of Swarthmore tradition—a joint
luncheon meeting with Philadelphia members of the Haverford Alumni Association.
The luncheon was the first joint meeting in Philadelphia
Club history. It was held during the week before the
renewal of the Swarthmore-Haverford football game. Two
hundred alums attended.
Swarthmoreans were the hosts and President Felix
Morley of Haverford was guest speaker. Swarthmore’s Presi­
dent John Nason presided. Other guests were the athletic
directors, football coaches and football captains of both
colleges.

\ ne
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The Club is continuing regular monthly luncheon meet­
ings on the first Wednesday of each month in the University
Club Building, 16th and Locust Streets, Philadelphia.
The annual dinner is scheduled for Saturday, February
28 at the Bellevue Stratford Hotel.
Club president for the current year is Herbert L. Brown
of the class of 1916. Other officers: Thomas S. Nicely, ’30,
Vice President; William F. Lee, '32, Treasurer.
ROBERT H. WILSON, ’31

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