Manhattan College - Manhattanite Yearbook (Riverdale, NY)

Page 176 text:

SENIOR BALL HE year's most enthusiastic event and one of its greatest successes was the Senior Ball, held on Fri- day, May 31, in the Grand Ballroom of the Hotel Pennsylvania. To the music of Shep Fields, more than six hundred Man- hattan men and members of the Alumni body, with their dancing partners, com- fortably hlled the great Ballroom and en- joyed one another's company for a mem- orable evening of gaity. VVhite jackets and white shoulders, dancing eyes and dancing feet were the order of the day. Many a Manhattan man, still in uniform celebrated his return or near return to civilian life and drank in again the smiles of his friends as he realized how fine a town Manhattan is and how fine a group he was returning to. Fraternity and alumni members were conspicuous in their hearty support of the project, ii- nanced by Alpha Sigma Beta, to secure a real red letter day to graduating Man- hattanites. Under the sponsorship of Brother Alphonsus, Senior Class Moderator, and with the support of the Supreme Body of Alpha Sigma Beta Fraternity, whose President, I. Wfarren Kenney lauded the affair as a genuine contribution to col- lege life, the Committee worked hard and won a most deserving success. john Flood, Regent of Alpha Chapter, was honorary Chairman of the Committee. Active Co-Chairmen were Sylvester Balassi and Robert Radice. Gther frater- nity members, active in arrangements were Walter Lauer, Robert Fleenor, Myles Ambrose and Eugene Calure. 74 NVilliam Gately, President of the Senior Class and joseph Wa1'cl, President of the Student Council gave their active support to the project. Other members of the fraternity campaigned for bids and sold them to members of the class, as well as to friends and alumni. The success of the affair was not only a social success, but, despite the lavish outlay was within very little of being a financial success. Those who attended will not, however, easily forget the splendor of the scene: the vast ballroom with its decor of stars and stripes, the lilting and changing rhythm of one of America's most pleasing bands, the dignity of the grand march as the orchestra paid tribute to our armed forces and the stirring words of the college song sung by George I. Collins. The scene was more a Man- hattan one with the presence of many members of the faculty, pleased to see so fine an attendance, so successful a night and to meet so many of the former mem- bers of the student body. The class of 1946 may take justifiable pride in their accomplishment. It is something for them to look back upon and a real goal for their successors to aim at.

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The well wishes of the Alumni were voiced by Dr. joseph Mctioldrick, Presi- dent of the Society. Succeeding him were the Honorable John J. Fitzgerald, speak- ing for the Board of Trustees and Brother B. Thomas, President, speaking :I . sm-'rig-ff-,sal X-manga' 1, ' , was--, -si., 'M- , . ,.,.L3'qg57-I WV is ,,i-e7 , s:j'ig5, Q 4 f. L f, A Ji,-f ' l . . V' f- v' k:WrN'E 'x , V' 11.5251 ix Sw' WMC , . ax for the faculty. In his reply, His Emi- nence said: . . . nor do I make any other acount of my life than to aflirm that with all its faculties and energies, it will be spent until it can be spent no more in the gaining ot souls for Christ.

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CARDINAL TIEN HE College was pleased on Holy Thursday, April 20, 1946, to re- ceive a visit from the gracious Chinese Cardinal, His Eminence, Thomas, Cardinal Tien. In the cere- monies of his reception by the President of the College, Brother Thomas offered, in the name of the College and of its Board of Trustees, the honorary degree of Doctor of Laws, to which Cardinal Tien graciously assented. Before his de- parture from New York, Brother Thomas made a presentation of this afliliation among the honored sons of Manhattan at the Cardinal's House in New York City. At the commencement exercises, where the citation was read and the proxy for His Eminence, the Reverend Bruno Hagspiel, S.V.D., accepted the honor, formal award of this collegiate honor was bestowed on China's First Cardinal. Tung Lai Tien was born on October 28, 1890 in Chang Tsiu, a town in China's Yen Chow Fu province. Subse- quent to the Boxer Rebellion when re- sentment to foreign influence and its close associate Christianity was, so to speak, at high tide, his father had become a Christian and later a teacher in a South Shantung Seminary. In spite of the in- creasing hardships that those who pro- fessed belief in Christ had to endure, even life itself, Tung Lai was baptised at the age of eleven and took Thomas as his Christian name. Un reaching his four- teenth birthday he entered the Seminary at Yen Chow Fu. Ill health and the oppor- tunity of becoming a landowner did not thwart him in his vocation. He was or- dained on June 9, 1918 by Bishop Hen- ninghaus of the Society of the Divine Worcl, in the Church of the Holy Ghost at Yen Chow F u. Entering the Society of the Divine W'ord in 1929, he was appointed Prefect Apostolic of Yang Ku in Shangtung province in 1934. In response to the plea of Pope Pius XI, he fostered not only native vocations to the priesthood, but many lay activities wherever it was pos- sible. In 1939 he was appointed Vicar Apostolic of Yang Fu and raised to the episcopacy by Pope Pius XII. In this new appointment as Vicar Apostolic of Tsing Tao, one of China's oldest and most im- portant seaports, Bishop Tien raised the Catholic population from less than twenty thousand to more than thirty thousand souls in eight years. On December 29, 1945 Bishop Tien received word from the Vatican that at the next Consistory he would be raised to the College of Cardinals. Always the humble priest at heart, Bishop Tien kept repeating a single comment: It must be a mistake V' At the Consistory he was given an ovation rivalling that given the new German Cardinals who, in their country had as valiantly fought the Swastika. Tung Lai, the eleven-year-old Chinese lad had heard his calling clearly. On the armorial bearings of the new Car- dinal is inscribed the device: Adveniat Regnum Tuumf' Here he sums up all the endeavors of his life, the conquest of souls for the kingdom of Christ. Man- hattan is proud to number Thomas, Car- dinal Tien among her adopted sons.