PIPE DREAMS

I first take up the issue of the Dartmouth's outlawing, in 1993, the custom of seniors breaking their long-stem clay pipes on the stump of the old pine tree in the BEMA during graduation week. This tradition was killed because our Indian brothers accused this rite of involving a "peace pipe". This is, at best, a forced conclusion. Long-stemmed or “Churchwarden” clay pipes existed long before Dartmouth was founded and even before the English came to America. See:

http://history.org/Foundation/journal/Winter03-04/pipes.cfm

Many of these cheap clay pipes were coach drivers' pipes which were used by those early drivers who brought students to Hanover from White River, etc. These coach drivers would, when the nicotine and tar levels around the mouthpiece grew too dark, break off a few inches of the stem to get to a more pristine part. These clay pipes also were used in taverns where patrons could use a communal pipe by first breaking off a few inches of its stem for sanitary sake.

Early Dartmouth students adopted this pipe because of its panache, ubiquity, and low price. They also adopted the habit of periodically shortening the stem for hygienic purposes. Then, of course, when they graduated, this clay pipe would become a college-days throwback and its abandonment for more expensive pipe types (such as briar) was celebrated in this BEMA ceremony. It had absolutely nothing to do with Indians, except perhaps that it was the Indians who introduced the world to tobacco … perhaps an act for which the world should demand reparations?

Alas, we "Big Greeners" have been once again buffaloed by the PC crowd.