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

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whole horde of prisoners and the struggle would have to be repeated again. with the spirits of the tired captors greatly ruffled and co-educational sentiments getting badly jolted. Nothing was so thoroughly depressing as this co-ed strength, which could never be calculated upon and yet often proved so disastrous. The older and more experienced class, even when sadly outnumbered, would usually give the freshmen all they wanted to do, and the close of the battle often found half a dozen vainly trying to tie up a vigorously fighting survivor of the already whipped sophomores. The close of a rush was simple. The dead and wounded were counted roughly and the president of the vanquished class was allowed to surrender gracefully. Then the victors gave class yells, hoarse with dust and shouting, and then the pile of tousled, bruised and discomfited foes was assorted, untied and turned over to despairing relatives and sweethearts to be patched up for tomorrow ' s recitations. Blue end Charter Day Activities Charter Day, March twenty-third, has other associations now, but at one time it meant deep strategy, undergraduate cunning and a short, sharp conflict on the hills in the early morning. Custom required the freshmen to place their class number on the hills behind the grounds some time during the night. The use of lime and f O .T Syec-J. AVaX oUV V-tt X V.sV- i s v ! t ' JX ' V 3 Sf . e N 5 . - r$ $ ffet :,;.. ' - vM ' ii:.; i ' c. ' sf -,--- .--.----- ' - ' ' - - - i-iiBSiris T TO W:fe ' - KicuperaXicm ; ' t i i, ' g T a wf (,o rf, W newspapers was generally enough to make the figures conspicuous for miles, but one ambitious class once excelled its predecessors by using cement ! The transportation of rock and water and cement by hand required a large force of men for the greater part of the evening, but the stone numerals stood for a long time, a monument of undergraduate enterprise. After the figures had been made, custom required that the ffirecious emblems be protected throughout the night. Those long hours around a fire, perched above thfe sleeping to-n. telling stories and singing songs, waiting anxiously for the onslaught of a hidden foe. those were good times after alL Custom further dictated that no well regulated sophomores would allow those. numerals to stay in their place without a passage of arms. Hence a strong force would see to it that the hill was stormed generally before sunrise. Instead of marching in a battle line, as they did in the initial rush of the year, the sophomores preferred to surprise their opponents. This included disposing of the pickets and stealing all stragglers that were caught away from the main body. Then, the swift swoop down on the freshmen, and the old tie-game. There was always something homelike about 23 Clan Pilgrimage

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lue and of their drill-masters. On account of the fact that sophomores and juniors are all busy in the ranks, this courtesy devolves largely on the senior class, which, only recently liberated from the thralldom of the military department, finds its new-granted liberty so volatile that there must needs be some little celebration of the change. Under self-appointed officers, the seniors usually form a mock company and march in review past the timorous freshman ranks, their exhibition of tactics being scandalous after three years ' instruction. This march often takes the form of a close inspection of the freshman material and a very free comment on the striking points in the demeanor and general appearance of the more noticeable recruits. The first day ' s drill is always made so farcical that nobody in command expects results. The ignorance of the average freshman concerning campus customs was made the excuse for many tricks. New arrivals were sent to the exclusive fraternities to negotiate for board, yes, even for membership. One class a few years ago hit upon the clever device of printing free meal tickets for luncheon at the Dining Association and distributing them to the hungry freshmen. The campus restaurant received a tremendous influx of trade and its proprietors had a sad time collecting their money. The thorny days of intrants are now almost over. With the dissemination of knowledge over the earth and the presence of information committees at all possible places of need, the freshman, though a fool, need not err in the path. These Y. M. C. A. and the Y. W. C. A. committees after all stand for the broad college spirit which is taking the place of the old class spirit. In the change there is some loss, but there is also great gain. As the old Roman says : Then none were for a party ; Then all were for the State. Out of the custom of hazing have grown several unique organizations, established for the prime purpose of putting the freshman thr ugh his paces. Theta Nu Epsilon is such a society, its active membership being sophomores and its object, the subjugation of unruly freshmen. In order that no evil results may ensue, the sophomore names have ever been kept discreetly secret. The Axe Club, which flourished a few years ago, had a spectacular initiation and s ' everal freshmen were made conspicuous in the eyes of the college world. Just recently, so strong is the hazing spirit, the mysterious Chi Kappa Pi society came into existence and lived long enough to make a number of freshmen famous for the rest of their college career. Rushing the Measly Sophomore Interclass hostility, aside from the practice of hazing, had its manifestations in the hoary custom of rushing, a trial of strength between the two lower classes, in which the freshman was allowed a chance to prove his mettle instead of meekly submitting to a one-sided ordeal where he had no chance to defend himself. Although there were many skirmishes in the intermittent guerilla warfare between freshmen and sophomores, there have come to be in the past a number of set battles, whose times and nature were as fixed as Commencement and Christmas. The initial rush was often the fiercest. It brought out more men, for it meant much to the victor. The class that tied its rival vip on this occasion established a prestige which lasted, as a rule, throughout the whole of the year, and often longer. Hence the seniors and juniors saw to it that a full representation from the lower classes put in an appearance. Often this recruiting developed pitiful cases of bashfulness and quiescence. But on the whole a very determined array of hostile forces assembled. The battle was fought out on the campus plain at night, the whole area being devoted to the conflict. The freshmen got the place of honor and nervousness, waiting for the onset of the sophomores from the hill above. A long line of anxious youths stretched from goal post to goal post and had their spirits kept up by the exhortations of pugnacious juniors. Up on the hill in the gloom the sophomores were gathering, and the unexpectedness of their onslaught helped in no small degree to disquiet the nerve of the waiting freshmen. The clash, always delayed, came with both sides on the qui vive and meeting each other in full gallop. The onslaught once made, the rush became an individual affair, and man-for-man the two classes worked out the question of supremacy. Rope, preferably tarred, and liberally used, baling wire and even handcuffs, if the honor of the class, as well as its purse, demanded heroic measures. all these came into play ; and soon a pile of victims removed to the backstop began to indicate how the fortunes of the battle were turning. Often a sudden rally would turn the tide. Sometimes the deft hands of co-eds, with scissors and penknives, would release a 22: Class Pilgrimage

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lue and these hill skirmishes. Small parties participated, and the affair had many of the features of a church sociable, for everybody knew everybody else, and there were no outsiders to be in the road and get stepped upon. Fierce mauling in wet grass, with limbs aching from exposure to rheumatic dews all night, and the relentless destruction of the hated numbers, followed by their transformation into the winning numerals, all these features were more carnal. and the church-sociable simile fails. No matter how many times the numbers might be lost and gained during the night hours, tradition gave to the victor at sunrise the right to keep the emblems on the hill throughout Charter Day, and the unwritten law further stipulated that they should be absolutely unmolested. These Charter Day rushes were always very earnest affairs. The men who climbed the steep hill and spent the night in irregular fighting and sentry duty were not the kind that had to be urged into the fray as many were in the big initial rush. The Charter Day rusher had formed the habit and frankly liked it. Men, who have gone up to the struggle with their class honor in one hand and bale rope in the other, and who have suffered ignominious defeat, have been known to add their tears to the dew on the grass in the bitterness of their loss. Life was very serious in those days, and I wonder sometimes whether the men those years turned out have proved any worse than the men of today minus these trials. Getting Bourdon Cremated Strenuous as were the rushes during the year, nothing could approach the ferocity of the annual Bourdon fight, the last and most important interclass conflict of the year. It was a time when much money and time were spent by both classes, when final reckless attempts were made to even up any losses of the year and when the two classes, that would never be allowed to rush each other again, eagerly embraced the opportunity to smite with all their mustered strength. The burial of Bourdon and Minto was the celebration peculiar to the freshmen . class. It originated in the unpopularity of two text-books, a work on algebra by Bourdon and an English rhetoric by Minto. Long after these valuable volumes had been abandoned, the spirit of the past clothed the two prescribed studies with enough irritation to render the burning of their effigies a public duty. All the Bourdon cremation centered itself about the coffin, in which the hated books and an assortment of fireworks were placed. The capture and retention of this trophy- was the casus belli. To send Bourdon and Minto appropriately to the region undergraduate sentiment consigned them, required a formal funeral with procession, high mass and cremation. Each of these features of the ceremony was important. The funeral cortege was a weird combination of mourning, warring and scoffing. The coffin was borne by a lofty funeral car (constructed from a very solid and unsympathetic truck). The hearse was open at the top and could not be entered except over the driver ' s seat. In it the priests set off red fire and skyrockets while the procession wound its way through the town ' s streets, passing the fraternity houses, and reaching the campus by devious ways. The procession had devils and priests appropriately mingled. Some carried cleverly painted transparencies whereon were inscribed the virtues of the freshman class, vilification of the sophomores and heartless jests at the conspicuous members of the faculty. Sometimes these processions were very long, but they dwindled before the goal was reached. There were obstacles that were insurmountable. Sophomore hate spent itself in breaking up that ceremony. It began at the outset in trying to find the rendezvous of the freshmen and destroying the transparencies, wrecking the wagon and stealing the pyrotechnics and, peradventure, the sacred coffin itself. Not content with purloining inanimate things, the bold sophomores made a practice of kidnapping the freshman president and all the speakers that could be caught in an unguarded moment. Once a host of freshmen captives were housed in a costly Oakland residence, the campaign donation of a wealthy sophomore. The freshmen rallied to the rescue of their speakers and the battle that was fought in that home was something unspeakable. They say everything was wrenched loose including the foundations. Only once was a wagon captured and destroyed before the procession started. In 1896 the freshmen had a wagon fortified with barbed wire. It was prepared in Oakland and brought out in the early hours of the morning to secret headquarters in Berkeley. The place was found, and, in a pouring rain ' g8 and ' 99 doggedly fought each other until the sophomores had won the day, captured the barn and taken possession of the armored hearse and its precious coffin. That feat nipped a well-planned burial in the bud. 24 Class Pilgrimage