Penn Drinkers

Almost all U. S. colleges have some kind of rule to regulate drinking, but last week the University of Pennsylvania decided to enforce one. Since Repeal, liquor has flowed freely in Penn's fraternity houses and four have cropped out with bars. Because 31 of the houses have been transferred to University ownership to escape taxes, they fall under a University rule which prohibits drinking on University property. This year the Interfraternity Council, at the suggestion of Penn's administration, circulated a questionnaire which revealed that not one fraternity house was dry. As the University announced last week that hereafter drinking in them would be punished, the Philadelphia press blossomed with predictions that the houses would be raided, the bars smashed. Less impulsive, Penn's administration promised no raiding or snooping if bars and bottles were out of sight by spring. For this wave of righteousness most observers credited President Thomas Sovereign Gates's drive for contributions for Penn's 1940 Bicentennial.

This year the polling Literary Digest announced that college drinking was in the course of a "great boom," although of 581 U. S. colleges, 436 forbid students to drink at all, 105 have restrictions, only 40 have no special rule. Stanford severely provides that "the possession, transportation or use of intoxicating liquors ... in the university shall be grounds for expulsion." Perhaps the most lenient administration is Harvard's. Students may not only drink what & when they like, but they may charge cracked ice and soda water on their term bills. Princeton men are not allowed to drink in their rooms, and Princeton's eating clubs have a gentleman's agreement with the administration not to serve liquor. Yalemen are not supposed to drink in their rooms, but many Yale clubs and fraternity houses have State permits for bars.

According to the Digest poll, there are more teetotaling women's colleges than men's. Both men and women student drinkers, however, prefer hard liquor to beer about 2-1.

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