Bethany College - Bethanian Yearbook (Bethany, WV)

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partment was winning its battle, when one stu- dent with more presence of mind than the others cut the fire hose. When this damage had been repaired, the local volunteers turned their stream on the band by way of seeking revenge. History is not clear as to the outcome, except that the charred remains were later razed and that sever- al Bethanians languished for a few days in the Wellsburg jail until bailed out by the faculty. The legend of Ghost Hollow, a valley on the first bend past Point Breeze on the Bethany Pike, is one of divers versions. The most romantic idea is one which maintains that an aged chief of the tribe which held all the lands for miles around the College still wanders his solitary way in and out among the tops of the trees, bewailing his lot and wondering why he was not made a trustee of the College too. Then there is the practical point of view concerning the legend, and one which we shall dismiss. People get the idea that when the moon is shining down into the gulch, the Buffalo, wending its misty way, gives the ap- pearance of a lost soul among the trees. This is a very unromantic notion and should be ignored by those with the more fertile mind. The modern theory is that this is the ghost of a stranger who was going to visit the town and almost got here. It seems that the old trolley line ran on a high trestle along the side of the ravine. As the car he was riding was passing over the trestle, the power failed. Unaware of what had taken place, he stepped out to see a man. They collected him the next day, and ever since he has been wander- ing up and down looking for the man he came to see. Speaking of ghosts, our great diligence in the preparation of this article has uncovered one of strangest phenomenom. We did it by induction or deduction (whichever one runs from effect to cause). We reasoned thus: the occurrence of so many inexplicable happenings such as the break- ing of the light globe in front of Phillips Hall, the strewing of cigarette butts above the gates, the shadows seen moving every night behind the gym, must be due to some supernatural agent or agents. We hereby place the responsibility for for these and other such acts on a ghost named Alex, who lives in the Tower. He roams the halls of the girls ' dorms, imitating their voices and earning them black marks. He is present in Chapel when he stalks up and down the aisles during the program, whipping his invisible shroud about to give the effect of a turning page of a newspaper or textbook. In other words, we are inventing a scrapeghost to explain all the things we can ' t prove we didn ' t do. Awful Alex is guilty of a great many things around here. He ' s the one who throws empty beer bottles on the roof of the Bethany House. It is he who caused all the commotion last spring by putting the Victory Garden signs behind Old Main when the bulldozers were leveling it off. He is the one who causes you to fall asleep in classes. It is he who steals books and talks in the library. In fact, we think the best explanation for the late condition of the Tower clock is that Alex didn ' t like the light — it kept him awake nights — so he just threw the whole works out of commission. This is the beginning of a legend. Toj) — Students initiating a freshman. Bottom — Lost legend of Bethany, the old street-car, overturned and surrounded by stu- dents. Nine

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The old college band. Scene of the old Chapel, the present faculty office. nation, he did But he was not to be trifled with in such a manner. Vowing to have the last word, he changed to his tux and rushed back to class, only to be thrown out again. Then there was the man who commuted from somewhere in the hills. He possessed a rather ancient car and a manner which aggravated the majority of the men. One day they decided that something should be done about his attitude. It was. The car was pushed up the back steps of the Main building and allowed to rest at the front entrance and facing the sun. When the owner found the car he was overcome, but not reduced to a state of inaction. Equal to all emergencies, he hopped into the vehicle and calm- ly drove it down the front steps and away. This business of putting everything up on the Corri- dor became quite a tradition. It has been said that the Model T which once protected this town from the ravages of fire was taken apart and re- assembled on this sacred Way. There have be en no mock chapels for the past two years, yet perhaps the custom hasn ' t passed away for good. These little episodes us- ually took place around Thanksgiving time, and consisted of a good-humored, if at times slightly acid, take-off on the oddities and characteristics of the faculty by the students. There are, of course, other traditions whose origins seem lost in musty antiquity. The ring- ing of the Tower bell after such athletic victories as may occur, the privilege of a boy has of kissing a girl the first time they go through Oglebay gates together, the way the center gates are left open during finals week to let the ponies in, the dead habit of stealing the clapper from the bell and hiding it, and many others too numerous to mention. No account of the history of the college would be complete without mention of at least one of the great events which have happened in the past hundred or so years. Perhaps the greatest of these happenings was the burning of the old Bethany House. This event even made the coast-to-coast newspaper syndicates. It seems that the old building stood in approx- imately the same place as the present Bethany House, except that it was nearer Cochran Castle. The structure was a combination boarding-house- hotel-rooming-house-restaurant, built many years before of brick and wooden frame. In its hey- day it was quite an activity center, but by the late 1920 ' s it had become rather shabby, and im- mediately prior to the conflagration it had been scheduled for wrecking. Legend tells us that every fraternity and other group in town had plans and material for burn- ing the place, but the honor of setti ng the fire went to some boys living in Cochran — and they did a good job. By the time the Wellsburg fire department arrived it was too late to halt the blaze. The whole college had turned out to watch, and later the college band organized itself and entertained the spectators with such tunes as Keep the Home Fires Burning , Let the Lower Lights Be Burning , There ' ll Be a Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight , and many others. Rumor says, inconsistent though it may be, that at one time it seemed as though the fire de- Page Eight

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t i V To most Bethanians the outstanding at- traction about the United Nations ' war heroes was their genu- ine interest in world affairs and their seem- ingly un-professional attraction to democ- racy. In their chapel addresses and group meetings both men, Capt. Peter Cochran of the C a m e t o n Guards and Mr. Rodin Kadir of the Knights of the Orange Nassall agreed with China ' s Miss Yung Wong that the United Nations would be the continu- ing force of world peace following the war. Highlight of their day long visit in Bethany was the convocation program in which each of the representatives spoke briefly of his own coun- try ' s war effort. Preceding each delegate ' s talk Miss Murray, manager of the tour, discussed the speaker ' s own contribution to the war and his or her claim to fame. During the two group meetings held during the day Mr. Kadir, a native of Ttom the Ttont x Ed Sweeney, Peter Cochran, Rodin Kadir 7 Java, brought out the %OHl mixed cultural condi- tion of his country and its pre-war inde- pendence from the Netherlands with self- government equal to that of Holland. After assuring his listeners that he was fighting a war of sur- vival, Capt Cochran digressed from his main theme to point jut that he thinks Britian ' s economic sys- tem will be much the same after the war as it is now. The gov- ernment will regulate production, etc., but the small individual businessman will be allowed to continue. He was also concerned about the attitude of American youth in putting vocational training and post- war livelihood ahead of the immediate objec: of winning the war. In a lighter vein, the delegates were very in- terested in American styles, music, sports, and dancing. Before leaving Capt. Cochran stated that the one thing he hoped to take with him to his home in Scotland was a zoot suit. I -fln Untet national epott Once every year members of the Carnegie en- dowed International Relations Clubs gather in their respective districts to discuss, pro and con, important world problems. Through greatly re- duced in number this year, the Ohio, West Vir- ginia and Kentucky district meeting was held during the last week of October on the campus of Marshall College, Huntington, W. Va. Repre- senting the local club at the meeting were Jack Wright, Carlos Jaramillo, and Bill Young. Specifically, the delegates were concerned with the problem, After the War — What? Dis- cussion groups organized around this problem v ere divided into four sections and considered each problems as the British Empire, Pan-Amcr- i :anism, Asia, and the main topic of the confer- ence, World Reconstruction. Both thoughts and theories for these group meetings were pro- vided for by ten minute papers presented by the delegates from the fifteen represented colleges. The most challenging ideas, however, were given to the assemblage by Dr. Clyde Eagleton and Dr. Leon Godshall, both well versed in the history and pract ice of internationalism. In mak- ing the keynote speech of the convention Dr. By Bill Young Eagleton pointed out that there are three very definite forces leading to, and making necessary an all inclusive international organization. The first, he said, was the ever growing economic in- terdependence of the world which began with the industrial revolution. Just to show how strong this force is he pointed out that the political ma- chine in one western state has been wrecked be- cause of its dependence on the state highway sys- tem which has been virtually forgotten for the duration. When, he concluded, the state becomes fully cognizant of this economic interdependence, it will realize that an international government is the only answer to the problem. Secondly, Dr Eagleton pointed out that the physical, political, and psychological character of modern warfare is so horrible that it will ulti- mately destroy mankind if some steps are not taken to check its destructive force. There are no more civilians, he said. Modern war reaches everyone; the girl in the munitions factory may be far more important that the man in uniform. This situation he contrasted with the earlier forms of wars in which a few professional sold- Continucd on Page Twenty P.ige Ten