Commencement Part Excerpts

John E. Rexine '51 delivered the LATIN SALUTATORY DISSERTATION this morning while approximately 95 percent of his audience listened in utter bewilderment. After all, it is said, a gentleman need not know Latin, he needs only to have forgotten it. A summary for the puzzled follows:

Hear Ye.

Greetings to all of you. . . . (Rexine then made his greetings specific and bade his classmates "Hall and Farewell!"). . . . In difficult matters and critical times, let us remember to keep a balanced mind; let us be on our guard unremittingly; let us never be afraid . . . as Cicero once said in his defence of the poet Archias, "nourish youth, delight old age, embellish prosperous times, afford a haven and solace in adverse times, give pleasure at home, do not hinder abroad, spend the night with us, travel about with us, live in the country with us."

Robert B. Owen Jr. '47, a recipient of an LLB., represented the Law School with the English Disquisition entitled, CIVIL RIGHTS IN THE COMMUNITY OF NATIONS.

This graduating class faces the most depressing future that any class has faced since the lowest ebb of World War II. Many of us feel discouraged before we even get started. Part of our dejection is probably due to the fact that the United Nations to which we pinned our hopes for peace, has not banished bloodshed from the earth . . . But, if for a moment we can turn our attention away from the function of the U.N. as an arbiter of international conflict and consider the impact that that institution has had in other areas, we can be greatly encouraged.

To a student of the law today, one of the most remarkable products of the movement which brought the United Nations into being is the idea that, in the interests of world peace, the world union must concern itself not merely with the rights of each nation as a political unit but must also take cognizance of the human rights of individuals within each unit . . .

It has taken a long time to realize in practice that the peaceful enjoyment of my rights as an American citizen may depend on similar guarantees for an individual living on the other side of the globe . . ."

DeWitt S. Goodman delivered the English Oration on BLOOD FRACTIONATION: SCIENCE IN THE SERVICE OF MANKIND.

Using the application of blood fractionation as an example, he said, "the modern world, so much the product of science, should not become afraid because some of its effort is diverted to destructive purposes."