Note from the Editor

TCNJ Magazine has undergone dramatic and, we hope, temporary changes as one consequence of the reduction in state support for higher education detailed at www.tcnj.edu/~crr/news/2006/budget/TCNJreactstostatebudgetcuts.html. Our publication has been reduced from 48 pages to 20, and the quality of its cover stock has been significantly downgraded. We regret that we are afforded less space to share news about TCNJ and its community members and will endeavor to supply you with additional content, including news articles, letters to the editor, and podcasts, through our magazine’s Web page, www.tcnj.edu/~magazine.
PS: One minor correction to the summer issue: At the April reunion of ’56ers, the fellow leading the singing was Paul Krauss.

Another View on Peace

In the summer 2006 issue of TCNJ Magazine, professor Alan Dawley asks whether peace movements can stop wars and proceeds to answer himself with the assertion that they have failed to end any of them. I have serious disagreement with his thesis as well as many of the details in his view of history.

About three years ago, I visited the Hanoi Hilton. Nearby was a “war crimes” museum, in which large pictures of Jane Fonda and John Kerry were posted. Above was the text, “These are our friends. They understand us.”

After the war, the third-ranking official of the Vietnamese regime proclaimed, “We did not win the war on the battlefield; we won it on the streets of America, where, in a few days’ time, we could call out many thousands of demonstrators to promote our cause.”

Such movements were with us in the 1930s and 1940s also, but “progressive” historians should find it disconcerting that the rage for “give peace a chance” dropped off dramatically after the draft was terminated. Does this not say something significant about the real agenda of the valiant non-warriors?

Prior to World War II, the peace crowd was an integral part of U.S. unpreparedness, even though the Japanese clearly were increasing as a dire threat.

Those old enough may remember the cries of “peace at any price” and “better red than dead.”

And then there is the professor’s rusty refrain about “capitalist wars,” “poor man’s wars,” and the “corporate-military tyranny.” Is there no room in the minds of “progressive” historians to consider the long litany of attacks directly against the U.S. in the post 20 years? And can a tenable case really be made for a contemporary U.S. “empire?” After both World Wars, we wanted only to go home to our farms and factories. After World War I, we did. After World War II, we stayed to rebuild and assist conquered enemies never before seen in the history of the world.

Peace movements are effective, but the effect is to encourage malefactors and to sap the commitment of their adversaries. Strength and readiness and will are what “give peace a chance.” Thankfully, there are still those military “angels with dirty faces” out on the point around the world to ensure that the progressive peaceniks have the great privilege to demonstrate their naïveté as they reach for “feel good” and the high moral ground.

“Semper fi” still has special meaning to many of us. That very thought I recall every day as I pass a framed picture on the wall of my den. It is a Navy recruiting poster, a picture of an American aircraft carrier under full steam at sea. The caption is, “Life, liberty, and the pursuit of all who threaten it.”
Bill Burke ’53

Sharing Comfort

I was touched by the “Sharing Comfort” article in the summer 2006 edition of TCNJ Magazine. Both of my parents had hospice care, and I attended hospice bereavement sessions in north Jersey for some time after my mom died.

Now I have advanced stage IV breast cancer, which has spread to my brain and has cost me the use of my left leg. Someday, I, too, will hopefully have a caring hospice person at my side as I spend my last few days. Hospice people are among the most gentle, caring people in the whole world. So many people, especially the elderly, are so alone and have no one in the world to be with them. Just knowing someone is there and cares can ease the last days or weeks of suffering for an individual.

Thank you for sharing the thoughts of some hospice volunteers with your readers.
Martha Smith ’72

Miss Bray

What a great publication TCNJ Magazine has become. It has brought back memories, partnered with current updates.

The letter from Franklin Grapel ’33 was written by a former student of Miss Bray. It might be noted that Grapel wrote both the words and music of the Alma Mater we still sing today, 70-plus years later. I have had the privilege of leading the singing of the Alma Mater at many reunions-including the last one-and with Mr. Grapel in 1989.
Sincerely, Wanda K. Howell ’56

Faculty

I am a retired librarian who worked at TCNJ for 29 years. Your magazine is quite good, and I would love to see more about retired faculty [and] what they are doing.

I keep waiting for an issue to recognize the death of one of the most memorable faculty members ever, Joe Ellis from the history department. Last issue, you did John Karras, who is still living. This issue you did a memorial on Herman Ward, but what about Joe? He was such a character and influenced so many students and was such a good friend.

Patricia Smith Butcher
Herman Ward

I read with great sadness the piece about the passing of Herman Ward. He was my professor of poetry and methods of teaching high school english in 1960 and 1962.

I will never forget the first day of class, when he would arrange our chairs in a semi-circle, request that we each give our names, and, then, without hesitation, repeat each name, remembering each of us for the rest of the semester or whenever we encountered him on campus.

Dr. Ward was a teacher’s teacher, and, although I never made education a career, many of the things I learned about compassion, caring, and love of words came from my hours in his classroom.

Jeanne Rubba Smith
Class of 1963
Driver’s Ed

I recently attended the Hall of Fame induction at TCNJ and reacquainted myself with Tibbot Csik, Class of 1954, one of the inductees. His wife was in my class, the Class of 1957. He mentioned having met her when teaching a driver education certification course in the summer. When I saw the picture, I immediately called to mind that summer course, which most of the physical education majors took.

I may be incorrect, but I think “Looking Back” picture in the previous issue of TCNJ Magazine may have been taken in the summer of 1957 during that course. An area was set up near the Old Inn and by the lake, where demonstrations were provided. I think this one may have been on stopping distance. Tibbot may or may not be the gentleman in between the man and woman in the cluster of figures on the right. I thought for a moment that one might have been me, but in enlarging the picture, I am quite sure that it is not so.

For some odd reason, and, again, I can’t be sure, I believe the car may have been Ron Udy’s or Peggy Bauman Baldwin’s, both Class of ’57.

I hope you hear from others in my class, and that this little info may help you put the puzzle together.

Joyce Salt Allen
Class of 1957

Looking Back

You’ve probably already received at least six letters from the people in this picture, telling you what was going on. If not, this is what I think:

It’s a demonstration of how to park your car in one space. I don’t know why there are so many observers, unless they’re waiting their turns to try. The gentleman in the car is doing just that. The girl on the right is not giving advice; she’s looking to see what score she was given after her turn. There’s another woman on the left, awaiting her chance. As you can see, only two women involved. It’s a man’s world in the late 1940s (after World War II).

Location: On the track around the original football field, across from Bliss Hall and New House.

Those were the days!

(Sorry! No sociological research, but vitally important to know how to park a car in one space.)

Joan Edwards
Class of 1953

This letter is in reference to a photo published in TCNJ Magazine (Vol. 10, Number 3, Summer 2006).

On page 2, “Looking Back” is a picture of an instructor driving training class on campus—I believe the first time offered at Trenton State—supported by the New Jersey State Department of Motor Vehicles. The picture depicts a parallel parking procedure with, I’m quite sure, my car (a new 1950 Chevrolet). I’m the guy, cocked head and striped tie, in the small group to the right conversing with the instructor. I don’t know any of the others in the group, because this was during summer vacation, and I was, at that time, employed as an industrial arts teacher at Paul D. Schreiber High School in Port Washington, NY.

Drivers’ education was an elective in our high school at this time. Dual-controlled new cars were loaned by Pontiac to a local dealer to the district, providing a certified drivers’ education instructor was employed by the district. We had a minor emergency at this time, because our only certified teacher left Port suddenly. Me taking the new summer program at Trenton filled the bill perfectly to prevent any interruption in the high school elective.

This episode took place in the summer of 1950.

Sincerely,
Ed McIlhenny
Class of 1947

The picture “Looking Back” [in the] Vol. 10, Number 3, Summer 2006 issue of TCNJ Magazine is a summer class test day for certification of driver education teachers. I am the student at the far left in the picture. Parallel parking is what is taking place.

It was a summer program that consisted of both classroom and on the road (behind the wheel) instruction.

Thank you for bringing back old memories.

Regards,
John Pistolas
Class of 1951
More Peace

I am a 1987 graduate of the College, and I have seen a gradual change in the sphere of literary submissions to the magazine. In particular, I am referring to “Give Peace a Chance?” written by Alan Dawley.

On page 17, Dawley states that American rulers “crush civil liberties, slash the social benefits of low-income people, and give tax cuts to the rich—and ordinary people are forced to foot the bill for corporate-military tyranny that oppresses them.” Perhaps Professor Dawley believes that he can easily mold the minds of young students, but such articles included in a magazine that is forwarded to mature citizens (I graduated at age 50) easily conflict with many persons’ views of America.

A subsequent article on page 3, highlighting graphics professor Michael Kabbash’s “Patriot Act” board game only reinforces my opinion that the faculty is steering the students to vote in a certain political persuasion.

While I read the disclaimer stating that the opinions of the writers are not necessarily those of the College, I do believe that the faculty of the College is one of the most important assets of the College. Therefore, my query is whether the College allows the teachers to provide the growth and tools for learning how to form one’s own opinion, or are the students being prodded to mimic the views of the staff?

Speaking of professors who provide growth, I distinctly remember Frederic Goldstein. He taught with enthusiasm, knowledge, and a philosophy of life that was inspiring without forcing a “political persuasion” on his students.

Sincerely,
Mary C. Weingart
Class of 1987