As a member of the Class of 1941, I would like to speak for a moment to the delegation of 1951. There are times, when you read the papers, that it seems as if very little has changed since 1941. When the Eclectic banquet was held in June of 1941, the world war was two years old; we were in process of closing the German consulates in the United States; later on in the month Germany would invade Russia; Congress was kicking around a draft bill which finally won by one vote. Even the newsreels seem the same; only the faces are different. Indeed recent history invites glib comparisons, but parallels set in narrow frameworks are deceptive. The context is all important. The 38th parallel immediately identifies the battle in Korea, but has little or no significance when applied to California or Virginia. In the same manner, the headline parallels of 41 and 51 identify the continuing battle, but tend to obscure the huge differences. Indeed, aside from reported acts of war and rumors of war, our delegation graduated in wholly different circumstances. Some time before we graduated a bright young attorney by the name of Alger Hiss had hung the title of "merchants of death" on Dupont; the Neutrality Acts were the law of the land. It was the era of the phony war. Then Senator Nye first heard of Pearl Harbor, he issued a statement accusing the President of an election trick. That is a very long way from a Congressional hearing probing for the reasons we are not prosecuting a war more fully, a public ground--swell for more armaments, and an atmosphere where flying saucers can absorb the attention of the public as a possible menace. The whole emotional atmosphere has changed and with it the political complexion of America.

For the first time since 1800, the United States is allied with continental powers with all the responsibilities, discouragement bordering on disgust at the way some of our friends are dragging their feet, and the power that is inherent in such an undertaking. It represents a complete reversal of national policy that has remained inviolate since the time of Washington's farewell address and was articulated by Jefferson in the famous phrase "entangling alliance with none." Such a step toward collective security was never dared by even so bold a man as Franklin Roosevelt. It is an asset for peace which was unknown in 1941.

Ten years ago it was manifest that an international organization was ineffective without the participation of the United States, but there was no national inclination to remedy this defect. The fact that we are now a member and prime mover in the United Nations is an amazing reversal; the UN has been criticised for doing too little, for failing to achieve in five years what the people of the world have failed to accomplish in 2000 years. Law by itself does not reform as we learned from the Kellogg-Briand pact on the international level and by Prohibition on the national level. The real significance of the charter of the UN is that it represents the only effective kind of law--a law that interprets and reflects the feelings and events of the world--a feeling shared by all but one nation.

Over the years our awareness of the enemy has been honed to a fine edge, but his basic nature has not changed. Indeed in 1941 the enemy was scarcely recognised. Science has made the results of enemy action more devastating, and communications have improved to the point where we can have a crisis every hour on the half hour (with special bulletins whenever the news is urgent). Indeed communications are so good that two days from now we will be hard put to it to remember the cause of today’s crisis. You and I are presented with the choice of living on barbiturates, growing a very thick skin, or developing a sense of perspective. The last alternative is the most difficult but also the most rewarding. Somewhere along the pathway that leads to a liberal education, we try to acquire that sense of perspective. And I have always felt that such a pathway leads at Wesleyan straight through Eclectic Hall. Any efforts to dilute the effectiveness of this fraternity by any means or devices however well intentioned, should be and have been resisted.

The question often put to undergraduates "what are you preparing for when you get out?" carries with it the tacit assumption that what you are doing now is not really important; it has no intrinsic validity. Yet that very assumption denies the basis of a liberal education. The ideals, or as we like to say now, the way of life in Eclectic is the foundation of any credible dream of peace. To live as we live here with our liberty circumscribed only by allowing a like liberty to our brothers, to learn the value of an institution that has a tie to the broad experience of the past, to put the emphasis upon the individual and to develop his talents, is not preparation for anything, but a vital part of life itself. The modern tendency to measure a fraternity solely by its hell-week activities is as superficial as to believe the world has not moved on in ten years because headlines are similar. It is the kind of polarized thinking so popular today, the simple answer, the fast answer to a complex problem.

The poet tells us we remember only the good times, and alumni are particularly guilty of this crime. Yet, in the world of today every man needs an anchor, and to delay sinking your roots into an established society until the end of freshman year or the beginning of sophomore year merely delays a man in becoming an established part of a community. It is a delay that robs him of the counsel and steadying influence of the older delegations at a time when the need is most urgent. It places him in a state of perpetual emotional strain common to all members of society who have not yet found an anchor. No matter what the motivation back of the delayed rushing plan may be, it is in fact an oblique attack upon the fraternity itself--a flank attack against a position that cannot be carried by frontal assault. The fact that scholarship is declining at Wesleyan is a matter of passing concern to this university, but to link that decline with the fact that a man has pledged at the beginning of his freshman year is on its face a non sequitur. The uncertainties of the future do not enhance the desire for scholarship, but it is when the storm is at its height that the need for an anchor is most desperate. To drift for a year only disturbs one's course and does little to maintain the direction of a man's life. The fact that scholarship declines and fraternities exist are two facts that run parallel in time, but not in context--they have as much relationship at Wesleyan, one with the other, as the concept of the 38th parallel in Korea and the same imaginary line in California.