Dartmouth's Saddest

Away from snow-buried Hanover, N. H. on week-end jaunts last week went eight Dartmouth members of Theta Chi. Nine were left behind in the big, white fraternity house. Uneventful as ever was their Saturday night of bridge, radio, talk. Soon after midnight two friends who had dropped in went home. One by one the students drifted upstairs to bed.

In the night one of them heard a dull boom from below. He knew what that meant. Someone had banked the furnace fire too heavily and a puff of exploding coal gas had blown open the door. Sleepily he stumbled down cellar, slammed the door shut, went back to bed. He did not notice that a part of the chimney pipe had also been blown out.

Merton Little, the fraternity's janitor for ten years, discovered the broken pipe when he tramped in at 6:30 a. m. to stir the fire. Muttering angrily, he picked up the pieces, fitted them back in place. He had told the fraternity's Graduate Body, owners of the house, that the furnace was worn out and ought to be replaced. But no one listened to a janitor. Still grumbling, he climbed up to the sleeping rooms on the second and third floors. Finding the boys snug in their beds, he pushed down a few barely-opened windows, went home.

At 1:30 that afternoon Janitor Little returned to do a little cleaning. The house was still quiet. He supposed the boys had gone out to lunch. But when he returned at 4:30 to make beds, he found the students still lying as he had left them in the morning. He looked close, saw that one of them was not breathing, that his face was strangely pink. He shouted, shook the boy's shoulder. There was no answer. Heart thumping, he leaped from room to room. Each boy lay pink and still.

That night the eight Theta Chis who had been away returned to find a policeman barring their door. Sickening as a blow from his nightstick was the news he had to tell. All over the campus telephones were ringing. Students hurried from house to house. Soon all Dartmouth knew that, flowing from the broken furnace pipe, carbon monoxide gas had seeped through the Theta Chi house without sound or smell, brought Death to all nine sleepers.

Students flocked to Hanover's telegraph office, read the list of the dead. They recognized most names. William F. Fullerton, 20, had been an editor of the Daily Dartmouth. Americo De Masi, 20, had been college fencing champion. Edward N. Wentworth Jr., 21, had been on the soccer squad. Harold D. Watson, 21, had sung in the glee club. So it went down the list: Edward and Alfred Moldenke, 21 and 20, only sons of a Manhattan pastor; William M. Smith Jr., 21; Wilmot H. Schooley, 20; John J. Griffin, 19.

Next day a raging blizzard whipped Dartmouth's flags flying at half-mast for the saddest day in its 164 years. Grave-faced students plodded to their classes. They talked little. Asked for a press statement, President Ernest Martin Hopkins replied. "There is nothing that can be said that can be of any comfort to anyone."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.