a
THE RECORD OF AN AGITATION,
The Women’s Christian Temperance
Union, acting through its President, the
late Miss Frances Willard, sent out on
January 21, a letter to a numberof women
regarding the conditions at Yale in re-
spect to the use of intoxicating liquors
and urging certain action in the matter
The letter took as the premises for its
conclusions and the motives for the ac-
tion suggested, the statement made by
the Funk and Wagnalls Company’s
weekly paper, Voice, which is con-
sidered the New York organ of the
Prohibition party. Miss Willard’s let-
ter, after reviewing these statements,
read as follows:
“In view of the alarming facts con-
cerning Yale University, I would earn-
estly urge you to use all your official
and personal influence to secure the fol-
lowing early action:
“First: That all local unions, at the
earliest convenient time, pass resolu-
tions expressing deep regret that the
Yale authorities permit students to en-
ter saloons, and to have intoxicating
liquors in their dormitories, and to have
them served at their class spreads; also
expressing horror and grief at exposing
young men, the majority of them in
their teens and away from the restrain-
ing influences of home, to the frightful
dangers of the saloons and brothels that |
infest the neighborhood of this great
and venerable institution. Let the reso-
lutions forcibly declare that until these
evils are remedied we will do all in our
power to have our sons and brothers
seek their education at institutions
where the environments are less danger-
ous. The resolutions should also urge
upon the authorities at Yale to help
carry no-license in New Haven, as has
been done in the city of Cambridge by
the help of Harvard professors and stu-
dents for these eleven successive years;
also to have as far as possible the inter-
collegiate sports held in places that are
free from saloons.
“A copy of the resolutions should be
forwarded either to Rev. Timothy
Dwight, D.D., LED preseeee vale
University, New Haven, Conn., or to
Henry P. Wright, Ph.D., LL.D., Dean
of the College Faculty, New Haven,
Conn., and copies should also be sent
to the Union Signal, Chicago, and the
Voice, New York.
“As this desired reform at Yale is of
such grave and far-reaching importance
I urge :
“Second: That each union secures the
signatures of a number of parents to
the following petition, and send the
same to one of the Yale addresses given
above, also a copy each to the Umion
Signal and to the Voice.”
The petition is here given:
PETITION.
As the students in our universities
and colleges are in large majority only
lads in their teens and away from the
restraining influences of home, and in
view of the fact that these students are
the very flower of American youth,
and are to be the future leaders in
literature, science, education, and gov-
ernment, as well as in many of the in-
dustrial enterprises, and of the fact that
the use of intoxicants is exceedingly
detrimental to fixed habits of study, to
mental clearness, and to moral charac-
ter, while the example of drinking
habits among students is very widely
corrupting among the young men out-
side of college and who look upon col-
lege men as examples of cultured man-
liness;
Therefore, We the undersigned par-
ents respectfully petition:
First: That you will forbid students
under your charge to enter places where
alcoholic liquors are sold for beverage
use, to keep such liquors in their dormi-
tories or rooms, or to have them fur-
nished at their class or other spreads
and banquets. 3
Second: That you will use your great
influence to secure prohibition of the
sale of intoxicants within the city of
New Haven, the same as has been se-
cured at Cambridge. |
Until such action is taken by your
honored body, much as we honor Yale
University, we feel compelled to send
our sons and brothers to institutions
where these provisions for safety
against intoxicating drinks have been
adopted.
THE BASIS.
The statements of the Voice, referred
to, were contained in different articles
published in the last two months. The ©
first was an article which purported to
describe the celebration of the Yale-
Princeton game. The article was a
letter from New Haven, which was
headed up in scare-head style, as fol-
lows: “Old Yale’s Triumphant Drunk.
The Great Yale-Princeton Football
Game Inaugurated and Ended in a
Monster Carouse Lasting From Fri-
day Afternoon Till the Dawn of the
Sabbath—Two Nights and a Day of
Maudlin Revelry.
Directly under the
table:
CASUALTIES OF THE GAME.
Students killed..............- —
Students wounded .......... 7
Students drunk, not less than 1,000
In regard to this table it ought to be
said that the reference of the last item
must be to Yale students exclusively,
as it refers to the celebration, and as
the article expressly states that all the
Princeton contingent went out of town
on the first trains, early in the evening,
after the game. ‘This estimate means
that forty per cent. of all the students
registered at Yale University this year
were drunk on the night of November
20
Read was this
A few sentences taken from the article
may show its nature. “Friday after-
noon the trouble began. The saloon-
keepers knew what to expect, and had
added to their stock of liquor by the
wagon-load. Late in the afternoon, a
thousand Princeton students came in,
mostly on a special train.” This last
statement shows that on Friday after-
noon there were left at Princeton, at the
outside, sixty-five students, eighty-five
members of the Faculty and ten offi-
cers.
Speaking of Saturday morning the
account says: “The drunken uproar
around the New Haven House became
so intense that Yale’s trainer took his
team away to No. 250 York street for
their lunch before the game. About
12.30 the great throng began the march
to the seat of war, the Yale athletic
grounds, which are discreetly located in
one corner of the St. Lawrence ceme-
tary. The cold wind was bitter, and it
seemed as though everybody was armed
with a whisky bottle. Every blast of
Notus was a signal for all hands to take
a nip—‘just to keep warm, you know.’’”
As to Saturday night the account
says: ‘I made repeated efforts to count
the students who were drunk at San-
dall’s, at Heublein’s and at the Ton-
tine. In no case could I succeed. In
each place I got into the hundreds, but
would be swept from my position by
the sereaming mobi: * *°* *.* *
It seemed as though at least every
other man to be found anywhere was
drunk. But by repeated attempts
to count the drunken men in various
places and assorting those who ap-
peared to be college boys from the
others, I could not possibly estimate
less than one thousand drunken stu-
dents in New Haven last night.”
A great deal of space is given to
describing the alleged over-crowded
condition of the lock-up, in which the
police placed one Yale student in the
course of the evening.
A later issue of the Funk and Wag-
nall Company’s publication, which ad-
vertises itself as “a paper that should
be in the hands of every lover of hu-
-manity,” contained a repetition of the
statements of the first letter and what
is called evidence in support of these
statements in the writings of two New
Haven reporters, who have already
made quite a reputation hereabouts in
the writing of yellow material.
On December 23, the same paper con-
tained a long article purporting to be
a history of the conditions at Harvard
University relating to drinking. The
contents of the article are sufficiently
indicated by its head: “Harvard is Born
Again. — Marvelous Transformation
Wrought at the Big University by Ten
Years of Prohibition—Two Hundred
and Fifty Years of College Carousals
Followed by Ten Years of Prohibition
Sobriety—One Hundred and Twenty-
Five Saloons Wiped out—Alcohol Ban-
ished From Social and College Circles.
—President Eliot and 393 Associates
Vote for Prohibition in Cambridge.”
A SECOND CHAPTER.
On December 30 a letter from New
Haven called “staff correspondence,”
filled up most of the issue of this paper.
The head is again used to indicate the
trend of the article: “Yale’s Battery of
66 Saloons.—They Surround the Uni-
versity Within a Radius of Two Blocks
From the Campus and Green—Dis-
graceful Orgies Among Students are
Considered Very ‘Funny’ by the Edi-
tors of College Papers.—Out of a Fac-
ulty of 250 Members, but Three are
Suspected of Voting No-License for
New Haven’s 400 Grogshops—Dis-
graceful Practices of Visiting Alumni.—
Professors Wink at Alcoholic Revels in
the Dormitories, and the Beer-Wagons
Make Regular Rounds to the College
Clubs, Some of Which Hold Regular
Saloon Licenses.”
By including in the starting-point the
Green, which covers two blocks, the
“battery” includes nearly all the saloons
in the heart of New Haven. The use
of the word block is an unusual one.
It will be clear to those familiar to
New Haven to say that this territory,
containing the “battery,” is bounded by
York street at one end and State street
at the other, and by Wall and George
in the other two directions. Some of
the finer passages in this article are
the following:
“Drinking and bibulous carousals are
popular at Yale. Excesses of this na-
weeE%e, unless of such an atrocious char-
~
acter as to compel recognition, meet
with no frowns from the powers that
“Vale is subdivided into a multitude
of little clubs and secret societies, most
of which have degenerated into little
better than drinking clubs.”
“The Junior Promenade, which usu-
ally takes place in January, is another
season of drunken carousals at Yale.”
“The semi-connivance of officers of the
University with this sort of debauchery
has demoralized Yale student life al-
most from top to bottom.”
In one of the following numbers a
long article was printed on Dartmouth’s
record as to intoxicating drinks, and
on February 3, all the worst things that
had been said against Yale were re-
peated, in an article headed “The Drink
Devil in Colleges.”
This issue also contained a number
of portraits and letters from “men
who would not send a son to Yale.”
These names included ex-Judge Noah
Davis, Bishop Mallalieu, Rev. H. K.
Carroll, Rev. Dr. A. C. Dixon, Mr.
James B. Hobbs of Chicago, Bishop
J. H. Vincent, Mr. Ferdinand Schu-
ILOGUE®s
O ANY ADDRESS ronone 2¢ STAMP
Errom any COLUMBIA DEALER.
macher of Chicago, Helen M. G
and ex-Senator W. A. Peffer. Wie
BISHOP VINCENT HEARD FROM.
Bishop Vincent’s name in this list
occasioned much surprise. He has
since been heard from in the following
letter:
“Dear Dr. Funk: I do feel grieved
at the sensational announcement in the
Voice that I ‘would not send a son to
Yale.’ I never said or thought any
such thing. And I never signed any
document relating to ‘no license in a
College town’ with the thought of Yale
[Continued on roth page.|
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