Evening Star Newspaper, December 7, 1930, Page 99

SUNDAY STAR, WASHINGTON, P. C, DECEMBER" 7, 1930. HAZING COUNTED OUT ON THE CAMPUS “Silly,”” Says Bryn Mawr, aéd “Out of Daié,fl’- Etlzoes Yale, as Surve;y Reveals - Passing From American Collegiate Life of Long-Practiced Custom of Physical Punishment and Freak Tom fool- ertes for the Poor Freshman. In the days before prohibition it was not uncommon for sophomores to take the freshmen to a coanvenient saloon, lather their faces with beer and make them shave each other with a stick. BY HAL BORLAND. FEW WEEKS ago a New York news- paper and a Philadelphia news- paper conducted independent sure veys among 40 colleges and uni- versities to learn what had hap- pened to that old-time perennial “shocker,” the report of hazing that sent half a dozen fresh- men to the hospital and half a dozen upper classmen packing home, expelled. Both papers receiv in answer to their inquiries, polite letters from college presidents. In tones of gentle surprise almost every one replied that hazing was obsolete, that it had died a natural death or, in those few places where it still ex- ists, that it was dying, would be entirely a thing of the past in the next few years. ‘The schools questioned included some of the most prominent in the United States—Princeton, Yale, University of Pennsylvania, Rutgers, Penn State, Bryn Mawr, Bucknell, Swarthmore, Le- Migh, Fafayette, Columbia. 'HE inquiry was carried still further. In- vestigators were sent to college campuses to learn Yhe student attitude toward this one- time inevitable initiation into the joys and privileges of higher education. “Hazing?” came one Columbia sophomore’s nonchalant reply. “Oh, hazing was all right in dad’s day. But what fun is there in watching a simple freshman push a peanut down Broad- way with his nose? Of course, the ‘frosh’ have to wear queer hats and a few things like that, but those things are to help them more than anything else. It makes it easier for the fresh- men to get acquainted with each other.” At Princeton the sophomore gquestioned laughed openly at the idea. “I was reading just the other day about hazing,” he said. “[ guess they used to be pretty rough with .he first-year men, made them swim the canal and all that, but it's as dead as the dodo bird now. ‘Why, there hasn’t even been any ‘horsing’ in 15 years, and hazing died out before they took to ‘horsing.” ‘Hersing,” you know, was just a matter of making the freshmen march to their meals in tep and keep pretty strict hours. But it didnt even allow an upper classman to lay a hand on a freshie.” At Yale the answer 'was the same. “Oh, haz- ing doesn’t amount to much any more. What there is of it is connected with fraternity initi- ations, and it's pretty tame—queer clothes and foolish stunts. But even that is dying out. Why? Probably for the same reason college boys don't wear flowing mustaches any more— it’s out of date.” At Bryn Mawr a pert young lady of 19 looked up from beneath a jaunty beret and laughed at the question. “How silly! Why, there never was any real hazing at Bryn Mawr. Girls just don’t do such things. Oh, maybe in mother’s day they did put cracker crumbs or salt in a freshman’s bed, but that isn’t even funny, now, is it?” THOBI answers seem to just about sum up the present-day attitude toward hazing. It’s not excruciatingly funny; it's out of date, it’s childish. In these days of motor cars and even airplanes at the students’ command, other things occupy their minds; other pastimes, other recreations, other ways of showing the freshman that he isn’t quite the all-important personage he sometimes thinks he is. Psycho- Jogical tests under faculty supervision perhaps help to take the edge of “cockiness” off the newcomer. Organized interclass contests help to take care of the excess encrgy that once ran wild. Other int:rests offer more sure-fire amusement. And in this new day and age even college students have begun to realize that com- plete submergence of the ego is not always de- sirable. Curtailment of privileges suffices to put the first-year men in their places—enforced hours in the dormitories, bans against auto- mobiles for freshmen, restrictions against their use of certain buildings, hallways or meeting places. To the Peter Pan grad of yesteryear all this may seem quite namby-namby. “Why,” he will say, “in my day——" And he will rzel off story after story of paddlings, canings, strappings and all sorts of physical hazing, of gauntlet-running, of icy baths, of enforced parsonal service. But seldom will he reveal those incidents that finally brought just that type of hazing to its inevitable end—broken bones, real physical beatings, even deaths. Fifteen, 20 and 25 years ago every Autumn found stories of that sort of hazing on the front pages of every mewspaper in America. Annap- and were hazed. This sort of sophomore-freshman melee was an annual custom in many colleges and universities until a few years ago. olis, the United States Naval Academy, received & constant stream of publicity of this sort, probably not because of its outstanding severity, but because of the high position of Annapolis in the public eye. Midshipmen were questioned by special committees, officers were put under fire, students were expelled, and the whole matter was spread out for the world to see. Orders were issued against hazing, and hazing was superseded by other forms of trial and punishment under other names. They, in turn, were barred, and still other abuses came into being. Often these situations continued for some time unsuspected, because the plebes, or first-year men, were both hardy and resigned to their fate. Then would come along a plebe who failed to see the benefits of being force- fully reminded that he was a mere plebe, and he talked, often overstating the facts. The result would be another eruption, more expulsions. The earlier forms of hazing at Annapolis were primarily of physical endurance. Simple setting-up exercises were made tortures f¢ first-year men by demands that they perform one exercise 100 or 500 times without a stop. One student was hazed by being forced to stand on his head time after time. collapsed. This punishment was said at the time to have been meted out because the mid- shipman testified regarding another hazing. Hazing as such, however, was outlawed, and in its place came “running.” “Rupning” had none of the physical punishment features of the original hazing, but was confined to forcing plebes to do difficult physical feats time after time. This, too, was weeded out, and it was followed by “cursing out,” a mental torture involving verbal abuse on every hand. Eventu- ally that, too, was ruled out, and in the last 15 years there have bsen no such hazing scan- dals at Annapolis as were known at the turn of the century. Virtually every school in America, however, had its heyday of hazing, most of them in the first decade and a half of the century. Yale's hazing of 20 years ago centered largely around such historic places as Mory’s Temple Bar, Charley Well's, Piokasky’s or Gus Traeger’s, all beer gardens or wine dispensaries. To these rendezvous the freshmen were taken by upper classmen and there they were foreced to mount tables and sing songs, deliver orations and gen- erally make themselves ridiculous. Refusal on the part of a freshman was countered with a shower or properly applied paddles or a dip in an icy pond. THER.E, as elesevhel.'e, the particular game of the hazers was the freshman with an un- duly good opinion of himself or his achieve- ments. Such a one invariably was compelled to deliver an address himself, and he always was hissed from start to finish. The result of such treatment usually was a thoroughly chastened freshman. And, indeed, this chastening was generally the goal of hazing. Upper classmen had the idea—many still hold it—that freshmen should approach higher edu- cation with the humility of a worm. All fresh- men were suspected of lacking such humility Freshmen most arrogantly o 40r . shits W WUAY YIMoSN Eventually he displaying their lack of humility were given special attention. In the Yale beer-garden hazings referred to, the special attention often consisted in forcing “cocky” freshman to shave another with lather and his forefinger for a blade, ceremony was completed by pouring a of beer down the back of each of them, even massaging their heads in it. Crude? ale men of that day thought it was funny. But such a mild form of hazing at Yale was preceded by physical torture that reached a climax in 1892, Wilkins Rustin, a sophomore, being initiated into a secret fraternity, was being walked down the middle of Temple street blindfolded. The usual paddling and “funny stuff” had preceded and other stunts were to follow. But as Rustin and his upper classman guide passed a livery stable they failed to see the pole of a big hack projecting into the street. Rustin being hustled along ran into it and was fatally hurt. His death put an end to physical hazing at Yale, PFatal accidents in hazings usually marked the end of that practice in a school. Cornell hazing faded away after a student there, blindfolded and wandering about, stepped over a precipice and broke his neck. At Harvard a student being initiated into a club was branded on the arm with a cigar butt, a custom then more or less common, and died from blood poisoning. Har- vard dropped such tactics. At Virginia Military Institute & youth suffered paralysis and finally death from what he described as “a beating with bayonets” as a part of freshman hazing. At Annapolis an excited freshman whose room was being stormed by upper-class hazers fired through the door with a pistol and one student was fatally wounded. At a Western school a freshman was tied to a railroad siding as a train approached. The train passed on the main tracks close by and the captive freshman was so frightened he went insane. Only a few years ago a student at the Uni- versity of Texas was electrocuted during an initiation when in crawling between two sets of poorly wired bedsprings carrying a low-voltage “shocking current” he touched a live wire. The same year & youth was killed in a shooting growing out of interschool hazing between two colleges at Birmingham, Ala. , DAY the old physical torture designed to put the freshman in his place has given way to sets of rules, regulated dress, question- naires and mild forms of initiatory ceremonies in fraternities. Nearly all the schools nowadays have specially printed books of instruction for . the freshman. He must wear a prescribed type of headgear, often a certain color of sox and necktie. He must remain off the grass. He must not use certain paths nor sections of the dining room. He must ring the chapel bell after athletic victories. Above all, he must try to acquaint himself with the other members of his class. Fraternities often add to these regu- lations certain specified duties for freshmen, such as caring for the lawn, tending the In fraternity houses these rules may be amplified by a brief week or two.of sore strict .discipline, sometimes enforced: with m- or increase of ‘16 ‘per'cent, 119,00 Stunts which threatened the health and mind of the victim by subjecting him to tremendous fright and shock havé long been frowned upon by school au- thorities. cold baths. But in the main the old-timé ruthless brutality is gone. And it is safe to say it never will return. For it was based in a way on still older institutions, and they, too, have gone, never to return. The first hazing, though it was not then known as such, occurred during the romantic age when knighthood was in flower. It was & form of tests for proving an ambitious squire’s right to ride forth to deeds of valor with the knights he served. It included physical combat, It often included odious errands and even exe treme danger. It also included a long schoole ing not only in arms, but in courtesy as well, ‘The squire who ran the gantlet of these tasks to the satisfaction of his lord and master truly deserved his shield, his armor and his crest. Another form of grueling ceremonies can be found right here in America. It flougighed among the Indians, and until only a few decades ago was an integral part of every Indian boy’s normal life. 2 But these trials were self-imposed. To be sure, they were bound by custom and tradition, but it was the candidate himself who undere went them of his own volition. In that ree spect they differed radically from the hazing stunts which followed them in the schools ef the white man. Hazing, however, has not been confined, even in this late day, to schools in America. For years the Engiich schools not only tolerated similar practices, but even encouraged them, “Fagging” was one name for hazing in England, and it involved personal service by a first-year man to an upper classman. England, too, howe ever, has relegated the more severe forms eof “fagging” to the discard. In fact, hazing seems to have gone the way of other customs of other days. Mankind has grown beyond it. Other tests than those of physical violence are being applied to determine a boy’s or & man’s worth. Despite the sporadie outbursts, largely in the smaller colleges, which (Copyright, 1930.) How Tewins Differ L] »a" Continued jrom Fourth Page or both members in prison. Thirteen of the were twins of the identical type, and of 10 had both twins in prison. Of the 17 pairs which were of the fraternal type had both twins with a prison record. And when one of a pair of identical twins gains distinction in a favorable way, the other most bound to. American Grosvenor brothers, for ine stance, selected different vocat'ions, but nevere careers have been singularly went to school at the same age together. o fraternities claim the membership and in college they were enthusiastic about the same sports. : Twins still have a faseination for us today, as they always have had, but they are stepping rom the pages of fiction and drama into those of the sclentific journal. Sewing Machine Qutput. Tl-ll modern housewife who sews at s turning toward electric sewing mm Taken as a whole, however, there seems to be a tendency away from home sewing, if the manufacture of sewing machines may be taken- as a basis for judging the trend. During 1929, the Census Bureau reports, there were 321,000 electric sewing machines produced, being an increase of 3% per cent over 1927, while the 346,000 foot and hand type machines manu- factured represented a falling off of 231, per cent. The net result was a decrease of more than 12 per cent in production from the 1927 figures. LI During that same period tte production of industrial- sewing machiles showed. an oot bre befan e