Drinking

The University of Michigan is famed for its law school, for its longtime Football Coach Fielding H. ("Hurry Up") Yost and for consistently getting its intramural difficulties well aired. After a protracted wrangle with the state legislature, Dr. Clarence Cook Little, cancer expert, resigned the presidency two years ago (TIME, Feb. 4, 1929). Last year three undergraduates were jailed for bootlegging. The placidity with which wide-trousered Michigan went its way last week was deceiving.

Many a Michigander brushed up his tuxedo, washed his car, made a surreptitious trip to Canada for a bottle of cheer to share with the girl friend from Detroit at the J-Hop, junior class dance. Michigan takes pride in its social life, fancies itself a cut above the average Big Ten college, and the J-Hop is the gala weekend of the year. Two days before the affair one might have heard the young men of Phi Delta Theta singing:

For it's not for knowledge

That we came to college

But to raise hell while we're here. . . .

Late that night burly Ann Arbor policemen shoved their way into five fraternity houses (Phi Delta Theta, Delta Kappa Epsilon, Sigma Alpha Epsilon, Kappa Sigma, Theta Delta Chi), wakened the torpid brothers, searched their rooms for liquor. They found 50 quarts of whiskey, gin, wine, half a case of beer. At 3 a.m. 79 students were marched off to police headquarters, charged with disorderly conduct. Except for ten Dekes ("Mother of Jollity") whom it was necessary to threaten with a "night in the coop," the 79 made little or no resistance to arrest. Chief Student Councillor Merton Bell, a Kappa Sig, and stocky James O. Harrison Simrall Jr., quarterback, captain of the 1930 football team, a Phi Delt, and two editors of the Michigan Daily were booked along with the rest.

That night students made a public protest against Dean Joseph Aldrich Bursley, denounced him for the raids. But it was revealed that the warrants were issued following the arrest of well-known campus 'leggers,* including a freshman Law Schoolman who was said to be chief of the University beer racket. President Alexander Grant Ruthven heartily approved the police action, ordered all five houses closed for the remainder of the term, thus evicting 184 students. When the fraternities reopen their houses next autumn they will be on "social probation," that is, there will be no parties, no fun-making. It was indicated that charges against the 79 would be dropped.

Last year a poll among Yalemen showed that 71% of the student body drank (TIME, March 24). Last fortnight the Woman's Christian Temperance Union issued figures compiled from a survey of U. S. land-grant colleges showing that in 1928 only .16 of 1% of the undergraduates were disciplined for drinking.

Following the recent arrest of eight undergraduates at the University of Kansas on liquor charges, the fraternities passed resolutions against drinking. From an anonymous band of scholastic vigilantes came an ominous letter to the Daily Kansan (student organ) last week: "To Whom It May Concern: . . . We, a group of eight students with the co-operation of an outside group, are taking it upon ourselves to see that these [fraternity] promises are fulfilled. . . . Watch your step" (Signed) THE GROUP OF EIGHT."

* Last month two Yale freshmen testified against campus bootleggers. No raids followed but the freshmen were suspended for two weeks. Two more who did not testify were suspended for one week.

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