Revolt at Duke

In Durham, N. C. one night last week a committee of Duke University students dispatched the following telegram to Secretary Alex H. Sands Jr. and Judge W. R. Perkins, a trustee of the Duke Endowment:

"We the undersigned men, backed by 14 national fraternities and four local fraternities, feel that conditions on Duke campus at the present time are such that you should come at once to see for yourself that student opinion means nothing to the present administration. We feel that we are treated like children, not men. Real universities do not treat student opinion with contempt. For thorough investigation we suggest that you do not communicate with any members of the administration. Wire when you will arrive."

Spark which touched off the long-smouldering revolt was a ruling week before by Dean William Hane Wannamaker. Because he had not been present to preside, he had voided the trial of a student offender by the students' Pan-Hellenic (interfraternity) Council. Next day the campus rumbled ominously. Just before midnight some 1,500 students clumped grimly into the university gymnasium, heard quiet, studious Joseph T. Shackford, president of the Student Council, urge them to be orderly but determined. Jack Dunlap, football captain-elect, announced that the rebels would take over next morning's assembly period to present grievances.

Almost every one of Duke's 2,800 students turned out for assembly. Most of them applauded politely when fat, dapper

Dean Wannamaker walked on the platform.

A few booed. He sat mousy quiet while Student President Shackford read out the following demands:

1) New Constitutions for Student and Pan-Hellenic Councils, granting full student control of student affairs.

2) Free speech for students in classrooms, publications.

3) Abolition of $2 to $5 fines for throwing cigaret butts in hallways, marking walls, spilling water.

4) Sunday opening of tennis courts, swimming pool.

5) Better food in the Union dining hall.

Upshot was appointment of a committee of three faculty members, nine students to receive written, signed complaints, pass them on to the administration. Student Editor L. H. Edmondson of the Duke

Chronicle took the meeting by surprise when he charged Duke's faculty with undermining student morale by its outspoken hostility to the administration. He called on professors to put their own complaints in writing or hold their tongues. The students passed his resolution. Afterward they remembered Editor Edmondson's reputed closeness to Dean Wannamaker, wondered if they had not endorsed a bright red herring. From the Endowment trustees came no answer to the students' telegram. Said Dean Wannamaker: "I like to see the students have some fun. They acted too hastily. They do not know exactly what they want now but they are earnest and sincere and something will grow out of it." Other university officials pooh-poohed the revolt, urged Durham newspapers to ignore it. But many a student and restive alumnus saw more to the affair than a youthful outburst, more to the rumored faculty unrest than the squabbles and jealousies which beset every university administration. Back of it all, they said, was the refusal of Trinity-Duke's longtime ruling triumvirate -- President William Preston Few, Vice President Robert Lee Flowers and Dean Wannamaker -- to adjust themselves to running a big university instead of a small college. Trinity College was governed by a board of trustees two-thirds of whom were elected by Methodist church conferences, one-third by alumni. When in 1924 the late Tobaccoman James Buchanan ("Buck") Duke gave Trinity his name and some $40,000,000, the board was left untouched. But control of the Duke millions was put in the hands of a new board called the Duke Endowment. What most Dukemen wanted to know last week was whether the hand-picked board of trustees or the Duke Endowment consisting of 21 independent members was running the university.

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