Macalester College

1916

 

FRESHMEN HOLD PARTY,
SOPHOMORES ABDUCT 4
Riverside Roast Successful, Despite Efforts of Second Year Men to Interrupt—First Year Men Get Free Auto Ride

The Sophomore Version

Four Freshmen, anticipating a feed of hot juicy “wieners,” were treated, instead to an auto ride through the invigorating ozone prevalent along eastern Minnesota last Wednesday evening.  That night had been set as the date for their wiener-roast and unsuspecting freshmen flocked joyously to the scene of battle, the Minneapolis side of the Mississippi River.

Sophomores Appear

About an hour before the expected advent of the freshmen with grub, ten wary sophomores could be seen peering eagerly from underneath the bridge, the lust of battle in their eyes.  In a short time Professor Funk’s car, driven by his Freshman son appeared and the Freshmen in it looked uneasily about for possible danger.  They were just about to disembark when the impetuous Sophomores made a rush for them and shooting the clutch into high the Freshies escaped with the grub.

New Attempts

Nothing daunted by their failure to capture this troop, the Sophs piled into their car and prepared to grab other bands.  The first group they chanced upon was composed of Pulver and a fair companion, both entirely oblivious to the approaching danger.  He was captured after a proper amount of resistance in order to impress his friend and was bound hand and foot.  Mr. Lindgren then responded to the invitation of the Sophomores and climbed aboard. The next victim was Fliehr; and Faragher, coming to the aid of his friend, was also invited to accompany the party.

Traffic “Cops” Amused

While passing through town the Freshies amused the traffic cops by their appeals for assistance. Faragher especially was insistent and demonstrated to the coppers the fact that he was securely bound and was being kidnapped.  The police, however, only grinned at his antics and several officers even laughed rudely at his plight.  Outside of the city they quieted down, having resigned themselves to fate.

After taking them out to the Wisconsin border the Sophomores let them loose in pairs, in order that companionship might cheer them.  With their usual generosity the Sophomores had untied them and left their funds so after a deal had been negotiated with some worthy tiller of the soil they departed for home in a Ford, and now appear as the heroes or martyrs of the class, sacrificed that others might enjoy wieners.

 

The Freshman Version

Friday evening the Freshman class pulled off a very successful wiener roast despite the fact that the Sophomores were determined in their efforts to cause both the “grub” and the male members of the class to disappear.

Taylor’s Efforts Unsuccessful

The efforts of Taylor’s bunch in his attempt to lay hold of Funk’s “grub wagon” were sorely shattered when Funk lost them in the “wilds of Minneapolis,” across the river.

The eatables were placed under the direct supervision of a bull dog in Minneapolis to await the time when the owners should return.  When the time came for the roast a party of Freshman journeyed to the place where the food was stored.  They returned to the banks of the river where the remainder of the bunch had a big fire blazing.

Refreshments Prove Attractive

From that time on until the picnic broke up, “wieners” and beans, and pickles, and buns, and cocoa, were the main attractions.  However, before the individual members left, they indulged in a number of Mac yells and everybody joined in the “Mac Rouser.”

The only regrets of the evening were the absences of some of our faithful members who enjoyed a car ride to Afton, a distance of about twenty-six miles.  However, the fellows hired a car and beat their “close friends” back to St. Paul by half an hour.

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The College Barber Shop will furnish a haircut or shave free to all Mac football players if they win either the St. Thomas or Hamline game.

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MAILBAG

Dr. Wallace Defends Mr. Kavli and “Raps” Initiations

 

To the Editor of the Mac Weekly:

I have read carefully your article in the last issue on how punishment was meted out to Mr. Kavli because he refused “to don verdant headgear,” how “it was only after he had rooted in the ground for some time that he assumed an attitude considered proper for chastisement,”  “then barrel staves were brought into good use and after the most severe paddling in the history of the school he promised to wear the head gear.”

In this matter I wish to express entire sympathy with Mr. Kavli in his refusal to wear a green cap at the dictation of upper classmen and in his resistance to the abuse and humiliation that was heaped upon him.  I only regret that he did not have his tormentors arrested and brought before the civil court.  Then they would have discovered that trespass on the rights of an individual by upper classmen would no more be condoned than like treatment of any other person.  I for one protest against this treatment of a fellow student as unjust, un-American and unchristian.

Students are taught almost from childhood the great American declaration, namely:  “We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men…are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”  This is the great charter of our rights.  Upper classmen have not one whit more right to dictate what a Freshman shall wear than what he shall eat or how he shall spend his Sunday, and to presume that they have such right is detestable tyranny, in flagrant violation of the spirit of democracy.

The spirit of tyranny and the whole “Caluthumpian” and initiation business by which Freshmen are compelled to make freaks, fools and asses of themselves before their professors and fellow students is a species of hazing, a revival or survival of the brutal fagging system that so long disgraced the English schools and universities.  Being essentially wrong it easily degenerates sooner or later into scandalous maltreatment and has not infrequently resulted in death or permanent injury.  For proof of this and the difficulty of rooting out the custom when once it is established one has only to recall the history of West Point and of Annapolis and the drastic measures which the government had to take to break it up.

One purpose of a college is to train young men and women for citizenship and a fine regard for the rights of others.  The practice of tyranny like that enforced on Mr. Kavli is diametrically opposed to such a purpose.

I do not know certainly what the attitude of our faculty towards this hazing of Freshmen is but I wish it well understood that I for one regard it as a serious breach of the first principles of human freedom, as a dangerous training in lawlessness and a plain violation of the Golden Rule.  And how our Christian students can reconcile such conduct with Christ’s law for Christian brotherhood I can not imagine.  How can they justify so treating Mr. Kavli that he goes forth to be with his parents, implacable enemies of Macalester College, as long as they live?  I have already heard of two men who hesitated to send their boys to an institution where Freshmen can be so treated with impunity. If truth or justice compel us to make enemies let them be made.  But the making of enemies for sport or caprice or by brutal humiliation is, in my humble judgment, mighty poor business either for Christian students to practice or a Christian college to tolerate.

JAMES WALLACE.

 


Hanover College History Department