Mrr 1 r " .- 1 - -II. I
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Bringing
Up
Freshman:
.n the
Political Areii
By ROBERT SELWA
ONE OF THE MARKS of our age is the
decline of tradition. This appears to
be the case in American society in general.
It is certainly the case on the University
campus.
Few customs and traditions remain from
the earlier times of the University, and
those that do remain are dry and tame
in comparison with those that have died.
The University opened in Ann Arbor in
1841, and by the 1850's student customs
were already emerging. They were robust
during the last half of the 19th century
but began to fade in the 20th century. By
the end of the 1930's most of the colorful
and virile old traditions had disappeared.
The most aggressive ones make today's
initiations andtypical panty raids look
like tiddlywinks. The more aggressive cus-
toms of old frequently were the result of
the intense class and school rivalries
within the University. They died out as
class spirit died.
They were also the result of the nature
of the student body: then it was smaller,
less sophisticated and more attuned to
the simple and rugged things of life. The
University was, after all, part of a young,
developing section of the United States.
IT IS REALLY NO WONDER, then that
one of the earliest customs to emerge
consisted of ceremoniously burning a
handmade corpse. Entitled the "Burning
of the Mechanics," this practice was ob-
served at the end of the semester when
each class completed the physics couse
taught by Prof. George Palmer Williams,
one of the University's first two teachers.
The corpse, which represented physics,
was complete with a skull borrowed from
the medical school.
ROBERT SELWA, A Daily staff
writer, is a junior majoring in jour-
nalism.
A witness, one Art Tap, described. the
custom as it occurred in 1860:
At 10:30 a.m. the students formed a
procession. The seniors led, one holding a
drawn sword. The juniors followed, sev-
eral carrying the corpse, all wearing
masks and white robes (sheets taken
from their beds) and some carrying
torches. The sophomores and freshmen
trailed.
After parading around Ann Arbor and
through a woods, the procession came to
a clearing where they deposited the corpse
on a funeral pyre. They sang hymns of
"doleful sorrow," Tap related, and for
nearly an hour they gave funeral orations
that were bountifully interspersed with
the howlings and lamentation of the
"afflicted" mourners.
They gave the corpse a complete court
trial and a student judge condemned the
corpse to death. The students then set the
pyre afire and performed an Indian dance
around it, howling like infernals. "It was
rich," Tap commented.
Tap did not mention it, but the inspira-
tion for the tradition had come from
President Henry Philip Tappan who was
familiar with German student customs
of a like nature at Heidelberg University.
Tappan intended to direct the aggression
of students toward an inanimate object
rather than toward each other.
He didn't always succeed.
THE ETHNOCENTRISM of the classes
developed through -the years into
"rushes," "pumpings," colorful name-
calling skirmishes--and even scalping.
In the rushes of those days, literary
school members and medical students, or
sophomores and freshmen, dashed toward
each other to push and wrestle those of
the other side for some goal.
In the "Great Rock Scrap," the fresh-
men tried to push a huge rock bearing
their initials onto the campus which was
defended by the sophomores.
On "Flag Day" the freshmen hoisted
their class pennant up the campus flag-
pole. The sophomores attacked to try to
haul it down. After 30 minutes, these
rushes invariably degenerated into at-
tempts to chase members of the opposite
side up trees.
The "lits" fought with the "medics" for
possession of the football field, on one oc-
casion in the 1890's. Some 700 men
pushed, shouted, tugged and wrestled in
the battle. In the end, the "lits" won.
"Pumping" consisted of bathing a per-
son's head under a water pump. A group
of sophomores would waylay an antag-
onistic freshman and "pump" him, or vice
versa.
When in April, 1874, the faculty sus-
pended three sophomores and three fresh-
men for engaging in this custom, a great
student protest followed. The sophomores
and freshmen responded by drawing up a
joint declaration justifying pumping. The
declaration termed the suspension an act
of tyranny and argued that it "destroys
that freedom of student life which has
been and is one of the greatest attractions
of the institution."
The 81 students who signed the declar-
ation were then also suspended. The Uni-
versity re-admitted them the next year,'
however, and the custom of pumping con-
tinued.
The University was more successful in
killing the custom of head shaving. Under
this custom, members of one class raided
the houses where the officers of a rival
class lived. The raiders then proceeded
to clip the hair and paint the faces of the
kidnapped officers.
Head shaving became most intensive
each February just before the annual
freshman banquet. Sophomores captured
freshmen and cut off their hair to prevent
their attendance. This custom was suc-
cessfully stopped by the year 1906 through
the joint efforts of the faculty and the
newly-formed Student Council.
CLASS ANTAGONISM also found its
way into the public announcements
that the classes made by means of posters.
Before the rushes, classes posted warnings
to each other. This 1937 freshman procla-
mation was typical:
The Rise and Fall
"Beware sophomores: Ye Blubbering
Babies . . . Ye Wearers of Rubber Diapers
... lay aside thy rattles and meet us on
Ferry Field at 2 o'clock Saturday at which
time ye shall have thy smelling flesh
plucked from thy jellied bones ..."
The freshmen replied, on another pos-
ter:
"We Blacklist you as Blasted, Blighted,
Bloated, Blusterous,,Blasphemeous Blun-
derheads. You have Belched, Bleached,
Blemished Blobs to use as brains."
A 1913 sophomore poster warned the
freshmen to stay away from Joe's and
The Orient-Main Street bars which stu-
dents frequented-where the "obnoxious
presence" of the freshmen "is not
wanted." The sophomores also ordered
the freshmen to see to it that "we, your
superiors, precede your putrified carcasses
through the doors." They continued:
"Pollute not the balmy ozone of our
sacred campus with the vile fumes of your
filthy pipes. Look to lofty things, fresh-
men, we will assist you to the "higher
branches'."
The sophomores felt it their duty to
prevent freshmen not only from smoking
on campus, but also from sitting in the
first five rows of the local movie theatre,
from "making goo goo eyes" at the women
students, and from trespassing on their
"game preserves" at Ypsilanti.
The sophomores took on other "duties"
besides these, too. According to the fresh-
man class of 1911, that year's sophomores
had caused "our loyal members to be
massaged with loose eggs" and made them
"bow down before beautiful co-eds . .."
Members of different classes had always
thrown eggs and other objects at each
other. During the chapel services of the
middle 1800's, for example, they regularly
tossed hymn books, apple cores and pea-
nuts.
Sophomores made it a tradition to put
freshmen over the fence at the time of
matriculation in September. The sopho-
mores felt it was a means of teaching
the freshmen the "proper" attitude of
respect toward upperclassmen. The fence
From Mayor
To Speech Writer
The Faculty is Active
Mayor Eldersveld addresses 4
By THOMAS HUNTER
THE POPULARLY imagined protective
academic outer shell of the University
has hardly succeeded in keeping the
faculty members out of politics. They are
active, not only in the politics which
normally breed within academic institu-
tions, but even those of the outer com-
munity, which may have nothing at all to
do with university life.
It would be impossible for the professor
to completely divorce himself from politics
today; Prof. George Grassmuck of the
political science department noted. "As
far as staying out of politics is concerned,
no one can do it these days," the professor
who took a year off to write speeches for
Richard Nixon in the last presidential
campaign pointed out. "Simply to claim
to be out is to be in."
Woodrow Wilson smashed the popular,
false image of the college professor in
respect to politics. The idea of a divided
academic and civic community was later
to contribute to his personal and political
defeat and give rise to a line of non-intel-
lectual public heroes. The return to nor-
malcy along this popular line of thought
is not only unfortunate-it is unrealistic
and dangerous. It is still evidenced by the
criticism of administrations which seek
aid on the campus.
T HERE HAS BEEN a continually grow-
ing interplay between campus -and
community life. Some faculty members
become more embroiled than others in
politics and leave campus to dabble in
community affairs. Others prefer to unite
the two realms very closely.
Two of the more spontaneous entries
into active politics are Professors John
Arthos of the English department and
Douglas Crary of the geography depart-
ment. The two are currently heading a
group of local residents who are protest-
ing against a proposed apartment struc-
ture and changes in the zoning code
which would allow the construction of
identical buildings.
The politicizing in this issue is certainly
limited and hardly pertinent to the pro-
fessors' positions at the University, but it
emphasizes the mobility of the faculty
member in the community.
Prof. Samuel Eldersveld of the political
science department put off his plans in
1956 to do research at California's Insti-
tute of Behavioral Studies for a "violent
campaign" to capture the Ann Arbor
mayorship from 30 years of Republican
reign.
BUT THEN THERE are those like Prof.
Richard Cutler of the psychology de-
partment, who couldn't quite beat tradi-
tion when he lost a race for the vacated
Ann Arbor area state Senate seat two
years ago.
THOMAS HUNTER, a Daily
staff writer, is a sophomore major-
ing in political science.
Prof. James K. Pollock, who, after 40
years of seeking "to be helpful to my state
when called upon to do so," has become
almost a tradition himself. He received
both the Grand Cross of the Order of
Merit of the German Federal Republic
for his services in the reconstruction and
democratization of Germany and the
American Medal for Merit, the highest
civilian award, for his work in Germany
during the period of occupation. Polloci-
today is one of the brighter guiding lights
in the state's fast-fading constitutional-
convention.
There are those like Prof. Grassmuck
who are active nationally, as well as inter-
national statesmen, such as Professors
Pollock and Samuel P. Hayes of the eco-
nomics department. Prof. Hayes, who was
with several governmental agencies dur-
ing World War II, later worked with the
State Department and is now an advisor
to the Kennedy administration.
From neighboring entanglements to
functions in international relations, the
list is long and the activities are varied.
REVIEWING his two-year term as
mayor, Prof. Eldersveld said he be-
lieved his political science background
didn't directly contribute to his operation
of the office. However, he admitted that it
sensitized him to what was going on
around him. He was conscious, for ex-
ample, of the power structure in the com-
munity and the values and probable votes
of the councilmen. At the same time, "I
had no special training in public or mu-
nicipal administration and did not feel
committed to any hard and fast structural
principles or methods of operation."
The moral philosopher, he said, would
not be interested in politics purely from
the empirical standpoint. Nor would the
man interested in public law necessarily
be led into the community. Nor, as in his
own case, would one concerned wtih poli-
tical thought necessarily be directed to-
ward direct political actiivty, Prof. Elders-
veld noted.
He acknowledged a movement toward
empirical research among political scien-
tists. But if they are more active in poli-
tics than their colleagues in other fields, it
is more because of parallel interests than
the result of the discipline, he said.
AS FAR as political experience aiding
scholarship is concerned, Eldersveld
said that he believes his own scholarship
was enhanced by his term in office. "My
own thinking about political processes
was enriched so that I became consider-
ably more conscious of some things which
I hadn't noticed before."
But at the same time he posed a moral
problem which the scholar must take into
account, one often breached to him by
opponents. Can politics and scholarship
actually be mixed? Can the scholar retain
his necessary attitude of strict objectivity
while involving himself in pressures and
compromises? Would he become damag-
ingyl prejudiced? Is he psychologically
capable of
participatir
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THE MICHIGAN DAILY MAGAZINEISUNDAY, MAY 6, 1962
Prof. Pollock receives award from West German l