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498 CORNELL ALUMNI NEWS
Nominate Directors Now
Buffalo Alumni Convention to Vote on
Regional Directors Whose Names
Come in Before September n
As plans mature for the general Alumni
Convention to be held in Buffalo on
October n and 12 under the auspices of
the Cornell Alumni Corporation, it is
evident that one of the most interesting
phases of the sessions will be the election
of the twelve regional directors. At the
last meeting of the Associate Alumni, held
at Ithaca in June, when the name was
changed to the Cornell Alumni Corporation,
direction and control of alumni matters
was vested to a large degree in the
alumni clubs throughout the world. This
control will be exercised through the board
of directors of the new organization. Of
the fifteen directors who will comprise the
board, twelve will be elected at the convention
from the twelve districts into
which the world has been divided.
Under the by-laws as adopted in June,
any Cornell club having at least twenty
members in good standing may nominate
one candidate for director in the district
in which it falls. It is only necessary to
submit the name of the nominee to the
secretary of the Corporation thirty days
prior to the annual convention. It should
be noted particularly by those many alumni
who are not members of any club that
any group of twenty or more alumni, not
members of any club, have similar privileges
of nomination. It such cases the
nominating petitions are to be signed by
at least twenty of the endorsers, and filed
with the secretary in the usual manner.
The require ment that nominations must
be filed thirty days prior to the convention
makes it necessary to send them to the
secretary not later than September n.
Nominations will be deemed to have fulfilled
the specifications if the enclosing
envelope bears a postmark thirty days
prior to the opening of the convention, or
if the nomination is delivered personally
to the secretary. The secretary is Foster
M. Coffin '12, 31 Morrill Hall, Ithaca.
Spirited balloting at the convention is
indicated by the fact that there is a substantial
number of clubs in each of the
twelve districts except in District 2. That
district comprises metropolitan New York
In all the other districts the number of
clubs varies from six to fifteen.
Districts I to 4 cover New York State.
District 5 is New England and all the
European countries; District 6, known as
the "Middle Atlantic," New Jersey, Delaware,
and Maryland. District 7 is the
"Keystone," taking in Pennsylvania and
West Virginia. District 8, the "Southern,"
includes Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee,
North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia,
Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, the District
of Columbia, and the Countries of Mexico,
Central America, the West Indies, and
South America. District 9 is the "Great
Lakes," comprising Ohio, Michigan, and
Indiana. District 10, the "Central," includes
Illinois and Wisconsin. District n,
the "Western," includes Minnesota, Iowa,
Missouri, Arkansas, Louisiana, North
Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas,
Oklahoma, Texas, Colorado, and New
Mexico. District 12 is the "Pacific", the
States of California, Oregon, Washington,
Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Nevada,
Utah, Arizona, and all foreign countries
and territories, excepting Canada, which
are not included in one of the foregoing
districts.
Members in the Dominion of Canada
are to be included in the district immediately
south of them; for example, the
City of Montreal is included in the
Eastern District of New York, and the
City of Toronto in the Western District
of New York.
YALE HONORS PRESIDENT FARRAND
At its recent commencement Yale conferred
upon President Farrand the degree
of LL.D. The presentation was made by
Professor William Lyon Phelps in the
following words:
"Livingston Farrand, president of Cornell,
whose first president was a Yale man,
and whose present president is about to
be. B.A., Princeton, 1888 M.D., College of
Physicians and Surgeons; studied at Cambridge
and Berlin; has received the degree
of Doctor of Laws from four universities.
His writings have contributed to our knowledge
of history, anthropology, and psychology.
He was professor of anthropology
at Columbia and president of the University
of Colorado, being notable for success
in teaching and ability in. administration.
His services to the cause of public health
both in times of war and of peace can
hardly be overestimated. He was chairman
of the Central Committee of the
American Red Cross from March 1919 to
October 1921; he was director of tuberculosis
work in France of the International
Health Board, 1917-18; he was executive
secretary of the National Association for
the Study and Prevention of Tuberculosis
from 1905 to 1914. He is an ornament to
a famous family formerly associated with
Princeton, and becoming more and more
identified with Yale.
In conferring the degree President Angell
spoke as follows:
"For your outstanding achievements in
scholarship and educational administration
and for your brilliant services to
practical philanthropy, we confer upon
you the degree of Doctor of Laws and
admit you to all its rights and privileges."
A WEDDING in the midst of Commencement
Week and reunion times was held on
June 16 in Sage Chapel when Miss Catherine
Highley Bowers '23, of Columbia,
Pennsylvania, was married to Ira Cornwall
Matthiessen '23, student in electrical
engineering, from Chicago, 111.
Gives "Dixie" Manuscript
Charles W. Curtis '88 Presents Original
Copy of Famous Song to
University Library
Through the gift of Charles W. Curtis
'88 of Rochester, Cornell has become the
possessor of an unusual manuscript—an
author's copy of the famous old song
"Dixie" by Daniel Decatur Emmett, also
known as the "Father of Minstrelsy."
Mr. Curtis brought the manuscript to
Ithaca at reunion time last June. The
gift includes a photograph of the author.
Both have been placed in a show case in
the vestibule of the Library.
The original manuscript was stolen from
the composer, who died in Mt. Vernon,
Ohio, in 1904. Only five of the twenty stanzas
are shown in the present copy which
was made by the author at the request of
a cousin of Mr. Curtis and which came to
him upon her death in 1912. Other copies
were also made by Emmett and one is now
owned by the Ohio State Historical
Society.
Mr. Curtis loaned the manuscript of the
song for a year to the State Historical
Association of North Carolina, where it
has been on exhibition in the Hall of
History in the State Museum at Raleigh
with a background of Confederate flags
that saw service in the Civil War.
The story of how the old song came to
be written is quoted in the language of the
veteran minstrel man as follows*.
"I remembered when a boy with the
circus that the performers always spoke
of Dixie land when winter approached and
the season for a tour in the South drew
near. This came to be a part of the circus
vernacular, and grew from the conflict
which was then already being fomented on
the slavery question. A man named Dixie
owned a great plantation on Manhattan
Island. When he was compelled to
abandon slavery he took his estates to
Maryland and thereafter when a slave
owner was compelled to leave the North
it came to be remarked that he was going
to Dixie's land. From this the term grew
until it lost all its provincialism.
"A rainy day had much to do with the
composition of the song. I was playing
with Bryant's minstrels at 472 Broadway
in the spring of 1859. I had written a
number of walk arounds and choruses,
among them Old Dan Tucker,' so that
when Neil Bryant came to me after the
performance on one Saturday night and
asked me to write a new walk around, I
thought the request nothing unusual.
'Uncle Dan,' he said, Ί want you to compose
a new walk around, one that the boys
will whistle and the bands play in the
street, something with lots of melody in it.'
"On Sunday it rained incessantly, and
with my wife I was compelled to remain
indoors. I thought over the walk around
all day, but could get no suitable inspiration.
I was standing by the window, gaz-