City College of New York - Microcosm Yearbook (New York, NY)

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The turbulent state of the world has been reflected on a small scale by a stirring series of events at the college. Free of the stultifying atmosphere of many scholastic institutions, eagerly aware of the external environment the students of City College have, through their | crsistenl efforts for reform both within and without the College, demonstrated the truth of the dictum that knowledge com| els to action. And yet this class has preserved the collegiate tradition. We have had our polities, our fun. our functions. The first half of the class entered the College in February of 1934. We went through hectic days that all freshmen must endure. Nervous and naked, we coughed and bent ten times, had our chests tapped and our blood-pressu re taken. We underwent a psychological test that asked us to fill in without thinking the space after “My stomach—.” W e waited in a long line to present our prayerfully marie programs to supercilious Phi 1 fetes who, their foreheads bulging with erudition, hojied to stun us with deliberately intoned “two triple epsilon” and “one double delta.” nd at last our college careers began. Hut events of far greater importance were occurring. That spring term saw the feverish activity of the first anti-war strike. On pril 13, eight hundred students gathered at a flagpole meeting, which w as led by the passionate, deep-voiced Kddie Alexander. The College authorities had previously declared such a meeting to lie illegal. The meeting was broken up by the intervention of aeling-Dean Morton I). Gottschall, who was aided by the fists of Sergeant Huccarelli of the Military Science Department and the police. s an aftermath of the flare-up, Alexander was drop| ed for an overcut in French. The athletic fortunes of the College took a decided upturn with the installation of the great Benny Friedman as football coach. A com- mittee, headed by the late Maurice Deiches, member of the Board of Trustees, guaranteed Friedman’s salary. AA cigliing in 8

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Tin «-lass look ils firs! tentative steps. Klections for the « lass council made Robert van Sanlcn president, Joseph Brody, vice-president and ('lilT Sager secretary. The class sponsored a newspaper, the “Re- corder,” which was to In issued only once more till its reappearance as the “Jester in the senior year. Hut by far the most important event of the term for Us was our victory over the Sophomores in the annual Frosh-Soph activities. The Hag rush was a hilariously mad conflict. Jollies were ripped, shins barked, and the defeated Soph- omore- torn asunder. Joe Brody exceeded Shipwreck Kelly’s miracu- lous exploits, when lie clambered up the greased Hag-pole in nothing Hal, and “Chick Chaikin foiled the best detective efforts of Sophs by concealing the white Hag in his pants. Triumph in this final contest prov ided the w inning margin of one point. In September the second half of the class poured through the |mrtals of the College and filled what President Robinson once called “these cloistered halls. We elected Solomon Chaikin to the presi- dency; Amberg and Besansky occupied the offices of vice-president and secretary. The Recorder made ils last appearance, in printed form this time. The Minstrel Show was a completely “whacky suc- cess, as the audience joined in the fun. The boards of the Townsend Harris Hall stage resounded daily to tlu measured tread of students being trained in the waltz and the fox-trot. On December 7, Mr. Mortimer Karpp, then advisor to the freshmen class, introduced the House Plan idea at a free cigarette” smoker. mimeographed announcement outlined a House Plan modified” in that the Houses were intangible, and many became charter mem- bers. From this small beginning has developed the House Plan of today. While class affairs moved forward pleasantly, a feverish period of activity engrossed the attention of the entire student hotly. The fall semester began quietly enough. The chief items of interest were Presi- dent Robinson’s return from an incognito” voyage as a sailor” on a Norwegian freighter and Prof. Morris R. Cohen’s reappearance in the College halls after his sabbatical leave. Seventeen of the twenty-one students who had been expelled for their activities in the “Jingo Day celebration of 1933, marked by the famous incident of the Hailing umbrella, were reinstated. On the fifth of October the first spark of a roaring fire was ignited, when there appeared in the Campus a small news item to the effect V)