Oxtoby: Pomona Alma Mater has Cooties; Torchbearers to be Revised

Music Critic

David Oxtoby has rung the death knell for the Pomona College Alma Mater, Hail Pomona, Hail! in this delicately-reasoned letter to the community. In his letter, Oxtoby tries gamely to have it both ways, but in the end, unfastens the song from its mooring to the college.

The Final Report of the somewhat Orwellian College Songs Committee appears here. Our interest was piqued by a sentence on page four, for which the committee appears to provide no reference to the "critical essay on the Choate Report by another alumnus". We see the Choate Report, but not the critical essay. This was apparently dispositive for the committee (see the second paragraph of the page below; click to enlarge). What are we missing?

As to Torchbearers, that old "glorification of manifest destiny", well, the College is going to sanitize it of the offensive words and even-more offensive "musical gestures", and only then let the choral groups sing it. If they want.

For the "Cootie" reference, see here.
For everything the committee posted, see here.

Torchbearers

It is little noted, but there is another Pomona College song with its figurative head on the chopping block. The song is Torchbearers, music by A.D. Bissell, words written in 1930 by Ramsay L. Harris.

If Pomona College cannot keep this song on its own merits, it is a College that has a more cramped vision of itself, its history, and its community than we want to believe it has.

Listen:

Drum-beats roll’d o’er the silence profound
Far above Pomona, above Pomona.
Chanting braves making echoes resound
Far above Pomona, above Pomona.
Garb’d all in feathers, each ghostly frame
Loom’d ‘gainst the embers while soft there came
Borne through the gloom like a feather of flame:
“He ne terra toma, ne terra toma”
“He ne terra toma, ne terra toma”

Southland slopes in their sunlit repose
Lie around Pomona, around Pomona.
Soft winds breathing of poppy and rose
Sigh around Pomona, around Pomona.
Stern was the promise our fathers knew,
Pine-clad ranges of misted blue,
Scent of the sagebrush and yucca that grew
High around Pomona, around Pomona.
“He ne terra toma, ne terra toma”

Ours be the faith of the builders whose dreams
Rais’d our fair Pomona, our fair Pomona.
Bear we the torch of their honor whose gleam
Blaz’d o’er fair Pomona, o’er fair Pomona.
Where bleak and barren the sagebrush roll’d
Rise green orchards of fruited gold,
Glory to those who, with vision of old
Gaz’d o’er fair Pomona, o’er fair Pomona.
“He ne terra toma, ne terra toma”
“He ne terra toma, ne terra toma”