Rock Rolling

When Nixon-for-President men get together in New Hampshire to talk over Richard M. Nixon's prospects in the state's early-bird primary election--the nation's first--next March, they are likely to ask one another, a little worriedly, "How strong is this Dartmouth thing?" The "Dartmouth thing" is the glittering fact that New York's Governor Nelson Rockefeller. Dick Nixon's only serious rival for the Republican presidential nomination, is an alumnus of Dartmouth College, which is to New Hampshire what Harvard is to Massachusetts, only more so.*

Last weekend Old Grad Rockefeller ('30) made a trip back to his alma mater for the football game with Holy Cross. Considering that the expedition was billed as "nonpolitical," he played some energetic political football, glad-handing every Dartmouth man within reach, tossing big-grin hellos at every housewife, policeman and infant within shouting distance. When he arrived in Manchester the night before the game, Rockefeller-for-President rooters were waiting with a brass band and a batch of placards reading. WHAT A FELLER. ROCKEFELLER and LET'S ROLL WITH ROCK. Next morning Rock rolled over to Concord, the state capital, to woo the state's top Republicans. pro-Nixon Senator Styles Bridges and leaning-to-Nixon Governor Wesley Powell. Same day the Rockefeller "Committee of 40" let it be known that it would shortly be expanded to a "Committee of 150." Among the recruits: Dartmouth President Dr. John Sloan Dickey.

Holy Cross beat Dartmouth 31 to 8. but Dartmouth Man Rockefeller seemed to be running up plenty of political yardage. At half time, students marched onto the field to spell out a big N.Y., then shifted to make it N.R. In an open-air speech to undergraduates after the game, Rockefeller told a punny story about six men in a boat. When the boat capsized, another small boat came to the rescue, but lacked room to take all six aboard. "Can you float alone?" a rescuer called to a man still in the water. "Yes," he yelled, "but why should you raise a question of business at this time?" Added Rockefeller: "This is my feeling about politics--at this time."

*Said Daniel Webster of Dartmouth: "It is a small college, and yet there are those who love it."

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