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

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The Passing of Naught Seven. By WITHIN a few short weeks the class of 1907 will have left the university and be a thing of the past as far as campus activities are concerned. Some of its members have become prominent in college, others have rather grown notorious. HDW long will they be remembered, even by the members of the present freshman class? When 1907 were freshmen there were two brothers in college. One Ligda was a track man, the other was simply a Russian. At one of our first field days, Victor Ligda was a close second near the finish of a race. Brother Paul jumped up on the bleachers and called : Run, Victor, run. Maybe he vill fall down and denn you vill beat him ! From that day on Ligda was as well known about North Hall as Abadie ' 04, or any of the other men who really made records. We Seniors can look back and clearly see in memory the men who loomed largest in college affairs or whose names were most often on the college tongue when we came to college. Some have quite dropped from sight, others are more or less prominent in various occupations. Every class has men who, at the time of their work, it seems would last forever in California traditions. When we came to Berkeley we looked upon Dick O ' Connor ' 04 as a deity whose heights we could never hope to attain. How often do you hear his name mentioned to-day ? He hung around, smoked a pipe and didn ' t know if he ever would graduate, just like Al Fletcher ' 07. He is over in San Francisco now. Not many know it, for he is doing hard work on the big dailies. J. G. White ' 05 and L. D. Bohnett ' 06, former Californian editors who raised a little stir in their time are remembered by but few.

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experience such as has never before been afforded to any battalion of cadets in any State University in America. Nor was their service without its casualties. Private Aten of the class of 1 908 was severely wounded in the course of duty, though it is satisfactory to be able to report that he has since recovered. If the men students of the University had their opportunity in helping to guard the city, the women students expressed their energies in the help that they gave to the refugees. Perhaps a defense of coeducation may be found here. Most certainly a community of men students could not have washed the clothes of the refugees, and even the refugees themselves, could not have cooked for them, and could not have taken care of the babies, in the way that the women students did. Hearst Hall was turned into a lying-in hospital, and the kindly administration of the women students of the University of California will long be gratefully remembered by the refugees from San Francisco who made their way to Berkeley. It was no slight work to provide for those thousands of scared beings, and though the citizens of Berkeley did nobly in throwing open their houses and providing food and clothing for the thousands of refugees, it was the women students of the University of California who took upon themselves the kindly care of the refugees in the relief camps. Never will the aspect of the University campus in April, 1906, be forgotten. If the members of the Legislature of the State of California had visited Berkeley during the last days of April, 1 906, they would have been proud of the institution that the State of California maintains and would have realized that the sons and daughters of the State who get their education here learn more than Latin and Greek, than physics and mathematics, that they learn how swiftly to organize, when a crisis in human affairs calls, to afford protection, aid, and sympathy in time of need.

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William L. Finley 03 was an astute politician as well as editor of the Calif ornian in his senior year. He has attained fame as an ornithologist since, and his articles on bird-life, illustrated by rare photos of birds on the wing, are prominent in many eastern magazines. California probably never had an athletic idol so worshiped as was Ovie Overall, ex ' 04. His salary as a professional baseball pitcher in the big Eastern league has just been raised $500 per year. Arthur L. Price ' 04, who edited the Blue and Gold for his class after Wyllis Peck left college to go to China, has made good as a newspaper man in the Scripps- McRae Newspaper League. He attained special eminence at the time of the San Francisco earthquake. Bruce Wright ' 03, once president of the A. S. U. C., is now principal of a grammar school in Alameda. George Mansfield ' 03, another editor of the Cali- fornian, is in charge of a daily in Oroville. Sam Stow 04 was a hero in college and has proved his mettle since. He recently received a Car- negie medal for rescuing a man from drowning in a lake near the paper mill where Stow is employed in Ore- gon. When we were fresh- men Max Thelen was head of the student body. A debater, a student leader and class medalist his record in college was a long one. He went to Harvard after graduating and having com- pleted his law work there, is now practicing in San Fran- cisco. Happy Dehm ' 05 of whom more anon, succeeded him as president and then came Prent Gray ' 06. Ralph Merritt, the present incumbent, is one of the few men who start out as a leader and remain in front throughout their