University of California Berkeley - Blue and Gold Yearbook (Berkeley, CA)

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lue and Mrs. Carrie Nation ' s recent visit to the college town and her enthusiastic reception by a sympathetic student body was a very characteristic undergraduate demonstration. Her arrival in Berkeley, her speech at the hall and her departure were all signalized by some bold action on the part of the college crowd that regarded the Nation tactics as peculiarly adaptable to undergraduate conditions. Both Mrs. Nation and the boys regarded the whole affair with good humor, and the only disgruntled element seemed to be the students ' affairs committee. Another incident, not particularly laudable, but indicating the temper of the students and their arbitrary rule in the town, deals with the refusal of a certain saloon-man to sell liquor to a large party of undergraduates. His place was wrecked by a bombardment of stones, and every chair in the house was taken to the campus and hidden in the most inaccessible heights of the campus trees. Some of the skeletons of these chairs have been only recently found when the trees were felled for new buildings. On another occasion a wagon was taken to pieces, transported to the campus and placed with infinite pains upon the little octagonal gymnasium, where it stood until the college authorities turned a squad of campus workingmen upon the vehicle, dismantled it and restored it to its indignant owner. Poor Alma Mater! Depredations of all sorts have been committed against both town and college, and it would be idle to chronicle more than a few characteristic instances. South Hall has had its dignified roof decorated with an army of barrels, each spire on the top of the building bearing these ornaments. Barrels (and other objects less worthy) have been hoisted to the top of the flagpole, and the ingenuity of the college authorities has been taxed to the utmost to get the unsightly things down and to keep the persistent mischief-makers from repeating the trick. Poor old North Hall once had a bell with a clapper, which was the coveted prize of many student generations. The bell is now dismantled, but a number of clappers are still kept as precious trophies by graduates who recount the exploits with undisguised glee. The library clock has suffered many indignities. It has had its face painted white, much to the mystification of the college public next morning. The clock ' s bell has been tinkered with by adepts so that it has rung hours that never existed in or out of the calendar. And so, ad infinitum. The feud between professors and students died out and was fanned into a blaze according as the undergraduate mind felt that the faculty needed disciplining. A story, very much suppressed, concerns the discomfiture of a certain unpopular president of the University many years ago. When the head of the University sent out invitations to a presidential reception, he little thought of the consequences, for some of the invitations were procured and counterfeits struck off. These were sent to every pugilist and sporting man that could be reached. On the day of the function, these worthies appeared and would not be turne d away. The mingling of college culture and the stars of the prize-ring was most gratifying to the perpetrators of the practical joke. The guests were further electrified that day, so the story goes, by being driven home by very dmnken hackdrivers. their inebriacy being directly due to the quantity of presidential wine furnished them by sly undergraduates who coolly invited the cabbies to make free with the host ' s wine closet in the rear of the house. College tradition does not recognize the famous maxim that to swipe is to steal. Theft, petty larceny, the coveting and removal of a neighbor ' s property has never been considered a very serious breach of the moral law, when the offender was a student. This is a principle that modern enlightenment is jolting. Chicken stealing has long been regarded as an offense peculiar to college men and the darkies. It is interesting to note that in the ' present day this offense in Berkeley is occasionally laid to other doors. O I cm fora ! O mores! The furnishing of student rooms, particularly in fraternities and clubhouses, with stolen goods has, until recent years, been a recognized practice. More than one Greek letter society has its table graced with spoons and silverware gleaned from all the fashionable cafes and hotels in San Francisco, and often from the whole State. But, besides such domestic considerations as tableware and food, the college fraternities have been further fitted out with elaborate decorations in the form of barber poles, mirrors, cushions, and other curios, the ' source of which the present chronicler can well afford to leave in mystery. It might be profitable for the reader at this juncture to consider again the exact nature of the escapades of which he is reading. IT the writer ' s point of view be correct, the persecution of townsman and professor is really all part of the broad hazing custom which is characteristic of the young college. It had its place perjiaps still has its place ; but it is bound surely to ultimate extinction. Official Rush

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If the history of the older University is ever written it will be as wild and rugged as the chronicle of the Angle and S axon raids upon the British coast. Those were the pioneer days, when history and tradition were made by a handful of men. The college halls were in a country village far removed from city and civilization, and things could be done and said then that the modern and fast-growing town does not tolerate. A pointed case is the very recent train hold-up, which received such general condemnation throughout the State. After an enthusiastic rally the whole under- graduate body adjourned to the station and took a ride on the local train to North Berkeley and back. The howling mob owned the cars. The lights were put out, and daring spirits turned on the air-brakes. Such a custom had been in vogue for years and it hardly ever caused a whisper. But this time town and railroad officials awoke to a realization of the fact that times had changed, and that deeds, permissible in a fresh- water college and a country town, were out of the question under the present conditions. Arrests were made and the whole college was made to realize thoroughly the enormity of the offense. The straightforward manner in which the associated students went to work to remedy the damage speaks well for their appreciation of the responsibilities that modern college spirit places upon the student of today. In the old days private individuals, societies and even corporations having interests in the college town received their share of attention from the students in submission and a half-thankful, half-fearful spirit : thankful that the student depredations were no worse, and fearful lest a second attack might atone for any omissions of the first time. Those were days of real terrorism. They were tolerated by the sufferers as some sort of penance for being allowed to reside in the classic atmosphere of an academic community. Secretly I am inclined to the belief that, except when the pranks directly affected them personally, the people of the old town rather enjoyed the student escapades. However, I may be wrong on that point. The Southern Pacific Company no doubt still has on its records the story of the wild trick played by a few students one night years ago. These worthies started a pair of flat-cars down the long grade from North Berkeley about three o ' clock in the morning. The momentum they got took them to B Street, with luckily no lives lost. The old dummy line, which has since been replaced by the Telegraph Avenue electric line, was another source of amusement. It was quite the proper thing to derail the antiquated engine and cars and interrupt traffic indefinitely. Once one of the cars waiting at the college entrance was given a start and traveled into Oakland alone, also with no casualties, althouh minor considerations like that were not taken into account at the inception of the prank. Once the turn-table was found lifted out bodily and placed in the bed of Strawberry Creek. What undergraduate perspiration was spent in that feat has never been revealed. Suffice it to say that it took six double teams to hoist the huge table out of the creek and put it into place again. Minding One ' s Own Business Concerning the mischief worked on the long-suffering residents of Berkeley no single chronicle could hold more than a small fraction of the tales. They were of all descriptions, from the harmless to the vicious. It was a favorite custom to visit town meetings en masse and take action officially on current questions. Once the students were urged repeatedly to attend a temperance society then holding sessions in the town. Finally the invitation was accepted and a strong delegation of students filled the hall. The question of temperance was to be debated, and the undergraduates plunged heartily into the business of the evening. Sides were taken, and, most regrettable to relate, the pro-temperance side lost. Then the students, far out-numbering the regular members of the society, voted to celebrate appropriately the defeat of the temperance cause and adjourned for a campus beer-bust. This action, heralded as an official move on the part of the temperance organization, caused such general mirth that the society was forced to disband. The beer-bust idea persists even to the present day. On another occasion a political meeting under the auspices of the Workingman ' s Party was held in the town, and a body of student orators repaired to the scene and took a leading part in the deliberations of the gathering. By a pre-arranged agreement. the undergraduates were all introduced as professors and spoke in this guise. At the conclusion of the meeting the party roll was further dignified by the names of most of the prominent men in the faculty, and the next day, when the news of the meeting was spread throughout the State, great was the wrath of the academic council. The Workingman ' s Party, so history tells us, made capital out of the incident and really felt obliged to the festive students. 19 Labor Day, 1904 ue end

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The Purification of Freshmen Whether freshman hazing will ever totally die out is a question you or I had better not answer. Faculty legislation so fai seems to have been in vain. The sight of the verdant newcomer on the campus stirs the primal savage in the sophomoric breast and leads surely to some outrage of insignificant proportions, perchance, though just as likely to end in something more momentous. It has been the brutal gloating over a defenseless victim that has brought about the very general practice of giving the freshman a thorny entrance into the University. And yet the custom is not utterly reprehensible. To wit, the men who were hazed the hardest in their freshman days show the keenest ingenuity in devising similar trials for the novitiate of others succeeding. Originally a freshman was subject to mere physical torture in order to test his manliness. The custom persists in the tenderness which characterizes some forms of modern Greek letter society initiations. Later the test became less physical and more mental, an effort being made by the upper class men to discover any latent intelligence in the newcomer. Hazing had as many forms as freshman verdure permitted- Particularly of service was the marvelous intricacy of the matriculation scheme as laid down by Recorder ' s Office, military department and gymnasium. Each of these offered infinite fields for the fertile brain of the sophomore. Bogus examinations in all kinds of subjects were given in out-of-the-way rooms by grave student professors. Impossible questions. Blue end ' COMPLETE VICTORY OF THE FRESH. VEX O ' EK THE SOPHS fAT THEIR FIRST RUSH OX THE CAM PC . Blur and Gold, iggo the failure to answer which meant disgrace and rejection, were hurled at the trembling preps. Often more picturesque tests were made, and history is still fresh concerning the case of a certain aspirant for forensic honors, who had his vocal powers tried from North Hall steps to the library, the extemporaneous oration being hurried to its chJse by a deftly thrown bucket of water from the upper floor. Measurement for gymnasium work was a limitless field. Scared freshmen were ' ped in the gymnasium by bogus professors and given a blood-curdling medical examination with strength tests galore. Particularly gullible subjects were sent away king with the understanding that they were so deficient physically that it was a miracle that they could still stagger around alive. Others were given an entirely frent impression of themselves and were flattered to hear that their muscular development had broken all records. Measurement for military suits was always a sure trap, and the undergraduate tailors saw to it that the freshman candidate for regalia furnished enough amusement to pay for their trouble. The greenest freshmen were often given a preliminary drill as a try-out for the colonelcy. One squad a few years ago was so imbued with martial ardor that their drill-master brought his men to a halt about the flagpole and had a dedicatory service with prayer and song, concluding the ceremony with an adjournment to the co-operative store, where eternal allegiance to that institution was sworn. In connection with the military department one perverse tradition holds and is hard to eradicate. It is the very general reception accorded to the awkward -nman recruits on the day that they first line-up for heroic treatment at the hands 21 :