Public Alumnus No. 1

AMERICA'S Public Alumnus No. 1 is Alexander Woolicott. As late as his senior year at Hamilton College (New York), his brothers in Theta Delta Chi didn't know whether or not they should read him out of the club. Brother Alex persisted in wearing a red fez about the house. No action was taken, however, and in 1909 Woolicott received the blessing of his Alma Mater and a Ph.B. degree.

Although he was a post-graduate one year at Columbia, Alex has his fondest words and thoughts for Hamilton. In appreciation he received an honorary degree in 1924. Dramatic critic for the Times, Herald, and World in New York from 1914 to 1928, Woolicott has since puttered his way to a fortune as a writer and radio star. Pudgy, preferring physical inertness, be once acted on Broadway in a play that required little effort beyond keeping from rolling off a divan. Yet, in the Great War, he became a sergeant in a hospital unit.

Had Chaucer's Canterbury Pilgrims been recruited in this century, they would certainly have taken Woolicott along, and some of Chaucer's nimblest tales would have begun this way: "Woollcott speaking."