Ed Reich and Irv Sager both tell me they still find a purpose in life. 


As for myself, looking back to the 1920s, my growing-up years, I now recognize the Jazz Age was a formulative culture based on a society proud of its past, proud of winning a war to end wars, happy with its present culture, optimistic about its future but overlooking the many who lived in dire poverty.


I attended Dartmouth from 1931 to 1935, during the worst of the Great Depression, relatively insulated from the horrors that countless millions endured.


I did a great deal of my studying in the basement of Baker and watched Orozco create his masterpiece mural, which defined the history of oppression and the hopes of the underprivileged. I came to understand the hopes and fears existing worldwide.


After graduation my business quite often took me through the Deep South, presenting me with an oversized view of a society hopelessly mired in extreme poverty. Sadly, I feel we have learned very little. We have allowed our democracy to descend into a plutocracy.


When we fought WW II we taxed ourselves up to 95 percent and in addition bought large amounts of war bonds. We tried our best to pay for the war.


It’s hard for me to believe we want to lower taxes to shift the burden of our failures to the backs of our children and grandchildren. We also make the cost of a college education their burden. What kind of people have we become? Does Dartmouth teach the truth, what is right or wrong? I would hope so.


Thank all of you who write, email me and phone me to tell me they stand along side me. I also thank the alumni magazine for allowing me leeway to write this. Believe me, it is very difficult to just write about the three of us.


Meanwhile, as long as I am able to, vox clamantis in deserto!


—Edward Gerson, 2400 Mariposa West 3A, Laguna Woods, CA 92653; (949) 829-8400; ejgerson@webtv.net