The Two Towers: Main

We are most desirous of the bridge across West Street, together with the grading of the hill to west of the dormitory. The cost is considerable but these two will give our college a completed and handsome appearance everywhere it touches the city.
      --Ralph Earle, 1933

Worcester Tech will definitely carry forward its building program. It believes that the strengthening of its engineering facilities is the best contribution that can be made to national defense.
      --The Journal, July, 1940

It is an earnest hope that some suitable building will be erected to bring students together at least once a week.
      --Yearbook, 1908

about since 1926, was named for him. "But it doesn't have anywhere to go," he had been reminded again and again whenever he had been persistent.

Now it had somewhere to go--for just across the way was the resplendent, towered Alden Memorial Hall, made possible by the trust fund set up by Professor Alden before he died. As beautiful and as functional as such a hall could be, no expense had been spared from its high massive ceiling beams and stained glass medallions to the hand-carved limestone figures which represented Man's cultural interests.

The addition to the Salisbury building had been completed for several months, with its great hall (the best for lecture purposes in the school) named for Professor Kinnicutt. Later, in the fall of 1940 at Homecoming, Dean Roys--carrying a new shovel and wearing a broad grin, both of which had been waiting for a good thirty years--broke ground for the new Mechanical Engineering building. Wallace Montague, chairman of the Ways and Means committee for developing Ralph Earle's plan, called this building the "remaining need . . . the last building needed to complete the west campus." And so it seemed, at the time.

On Commencement Day in 1940 Dean Jerome Howe had listened attentively to the speaker of the day, Charles Francis Adams. He had pronounced the names of graduates as they reached for their diplomas; he had attended the president's reception, the activities during the afternoon, and the Senior Hop at night. Wearily he wrote in his journal at the end of the day, "Arrived home 2:30, rather tired."

As a postscript he added:

"The Institute affairs have kept our minds somewhat off the dreadful news from France where Paris has fallen into the hands of the Germans."

W.P.I. had been founded at the conclusion of a war in 1865; its 50th anniversary had been observed on the brink of a war; now its 75th was at the edge of another.

There was an awkwardness when the country marked time for a year and a half, with the pace alternating between preparedness and indifference. One day there was a draft registration, the next, a tea dance "to lighten student mood." One evening the students who had signed for the Voluntary Military Instruction Course drilled in Alden Memorial; on the next, the Interfraternity Ball was held for the first time in the same place.

A German Jewish refugee spoke at a meeting of the Cosmopolitan Club; Admiral Cluverius acted as Santa at the Faculty Christmas party. There were Junior proms, Tech concerts, the Tech Carnival, and the usual class rivalry. At the same time there were lectures about chemical warfare, drills for civil defense, and an intensification of the Civilian Pilot Training program by the Aeromechanics division.

Finally came the Sunday afternoon radio bulletin announcing